2014 Book List

Photograph copyright K. Smokey Cormier, used with permission.

Wut, you thought I'd given up publishing my yearly lists, or even shrunk them in shame? Fuck no. Not me. It's the usual unmanageable List of Thousands, well, OK, hundreds. I want pizza if I finish even one-third of the books on this list this year.

Book List 2014

1. *50 Stories - Kay Boyle
2. 130 Projects To Get You Into Filmmaking - Grove
3. A Concise History of Indian Art - Roy C. Craven
4. A History of India 1 - Romila Thapar
5. A History of India 2 - Percival Spear
6. A New History of India - Stanley Wolpert
7. *A Short History of The Movies - Gerald Mast
8. A Tale Of Millions: Bangladesh Liberation War - M. Rafiqul Islam
9. Adventures in the Skin Trade - Dylan Thomas
10. Akbar & the Jesuits - Pierre du Jarric
11. An Advanced History of India - Majumdar, Raychaudhari, & Datta
12. An Introduction to Indian Music - Chaitanya Deva
13. *Art History - Marilyn Stokstad
14. Angle of Repose - Wallace Stegner
15. *Asian Dragons & Green Trade - Simon Tay & Daniel Esty
16. Bangladesh From Mujib to Ershad, an interpretive study - Lawrence Ziring
17. Bergman on Bergman - Paul Britten Austin, transl.
18. *Bird by Bird - Anne Lamott
19. Burchett: Reporting The Other Side Of The World - Ben Kiernan
20. Canyon Cinema - Scott McDonald
21. Ceylon - S. Arasaratnam
22. Cinema, Emergence, & The Films of Satyajit Roy - Keya Ganguly
23. Cinnamon Shops - Bruno Schultz
24. Clarissa - Samuel Richardson
25. Colonial Masculinity - Mrinalini Sinha
26. Crafts of West Bengal - Prabhas Sen
27. Crime and Punishment - Dostoevsky
28. Daddyji - Ved Mehta
29. Death in Venice - Thomas Mann
30. Decolonizing the Mind - Ngugi wa Thiong'o
31. Desis in the House - Sunaina Maira
32. Dharma and Development - Joanna R. Macy
33. Digital Filmmaking - Mike Figgis
34. Digital Photography Master Class -
35. Essentials of Screenwriting - Richard Walter
36. *Finnegan's Wake - James Joyce
37. First Person Singular - Joyce Carol Oates
38. Folklore of Tamil Nadu - S.M.L. Lakshman Chettiar
39. Frogs In A Well - Patricia Jaffrey
40. From Word to Image - Marcie Begleiter
41. Gandhi - Louis Fischer
42. Gandhi's Truth — On the Origins of Militant Nonviolence - Erik H. Erikson
43. Getting Organized - Stephanie Winston
44. Giving Up Hope - Kalyani Mehta
45. Gotta Have It - Spike Lee
46. Grassroots Guide to PNG Pidgin - Bob Browne
47. Handcrafted Indian Textiles - Rta Kapur Chishti & Rahul Jain
48. Herzog - Saul Bellow
49. Hinduism - Its Historical Development - Troy Wilson Organ
50. *How To Get Control of Your Time & Your Life - Alan Lakein
51. I Can Make You Thin - Paul McKenna
52. Ikat Textiles of India - Chetna Desai
53. Illustrated Historical Guide To Melaka -
54. I'm Just Here For The Food - Alton Brown
55. In The Blink of An Eye - Walter Murch
56. India Wins Freedom - Maulana Abul Kalam Azad
57. IsvarChandra Vidyasagar -
58. Jews of the Raj - Mavis Hyman
59. Kieslowski on Kieslowski - Darusia Stok, ed.
60. Kiki: Ten Thousand Years In A Lifetime -
61. Light in August - William Faulkner
62. Light on Yoga - B.K.S. Iyengar
63. Look Homeward Angel - Thomas Wolfe
64. Making Documentary Films - Barry Hampe
65. *Making Pictures: A Century of European Cinematography -
66. Made In India - Suparna Bhaskaran
67. Masters of Light - Schaefer & Salvato
68. Medieval Mysticism of India - Ksitimohan Sen
69. Meena, Heroine of Afghanistan - Melody Ermachild Chavis
70. Mike Leigh on Mike Leigh - Amy Raphael, ed.
71. Movies & Methods - Bill Nichols, ed.
72. Movies & Methods II - Bill Nichols, ed.
73. Music for Mohini - Bhabani Bhattacharya
74. Musical Instruments of India - Ram Avtar Vir
75. My Traitor's Heart - Rian Malan
76. *Nakshi Kantha of Bengal - Sila Basak
77. Notes on Directing - Walker
78. Orientalism - Edward W. Said
79. Our Films, Their Films - Satyajit Ray
80. Our Lady of Controversy - Alma Lopez
81. Ousmane Sembene - Gadjigo
82. Procrastination - Burka & Yuen
83. Punjabi Century 1857-1947 - Prakash Tandon
84. Ravi Shankar: My Music, My Life - Ravi Shankar
85. Reading Lolita In Teheran - Azar Nafisi
86. Rebel Without A Crew - Robert Rodriguez
87. Rosie - Anne Lamott
88. Sacred Cows, Sacred Places - Deryck O. Lodrick
89. Satyajit Ray: The Inner Eye (The Biography Of A Master Film-Maker - Andrew Robinson
90. Sayles on Sayles - Gavin Smith, ed.
91. Screenwriting 434 - Lew Hunter
92. Shoot Me - Simonelli & Frumkes
93. Showdown - Jorge Amado
94. Sitar & Sarod in the 18th & 19th centuries - Allyn Miner
95. Some Trouble With Cows - Beth Roy
96. Something Like An Autobiography - Kurosawa Akira
97. Songs of Kabir - Rabindranath Tagore
98. Srikanta - Sharatchandra Chattopadhyay
99. The Ajanta Caves -
100. The Argumentative Indian - Amartya Sen
101. The Art of the Novel - Milan Kundera
102. The Autobiography of An Unknown Indian - Nirad C. Chaudhary
103. The Bengal Muslims 1871 - 1906 - Ahmed
104. The Bhopal Tragedy - ARPEN Report
105. The Central Structure of the Mughal Empire - Ibn Hasan
106. The Declaration of Independent Filmmaking - Polish, Polish, & Sheldon
107. The Dictionary of Hindustani Classical Music - Bimalakanta Roychaudhuri
108. The Discovery of India - Jawaharlal Nehru
109. The Encylopedia of the Indian Diaspora - Brij V. Lal
110. The Films of Akira Kurosawa - Donald Richie
111. The Forgotten Army (Indian Mutiny) - Peter Ward Fay
112. The Gene Hunters Biotechnology and the scramble for seeds - Calestous Juma
113. The Gesture Language of the Hindu Dance - La Meri
114. The Great Hedge of India - Roy Moxham
115. The Hill of Devi - E.M. Forster
116. The Idiot - Fyodor Dostoevsky
117. The Men Who Ruled India Vol. I The Founders - Philip Woodruff
118. The Men Who Ruled India, Vol. II The Guardians - Philip Woodruff
119. The Mind's Eye - Douglas Hofstader
120. The Politics of Sri Lanka - Robert N. Kearney
121. The Rape of Bangladesh - Mascarenhas
122. The Remembered Village - M.N. Srinivasan
123. The Rig Veda - Wendy Doniger O'Flaherty, transl
124. The Sari - Linda Lynton
125. The Story of Zahra - Hanan al-Shaykh
126. Thinking Fast & Slow - Daniel Kahneman
127. The Thirteen Principal Upanishads - Robert Ernest Hume
128. Third World Filmmaking -
129. Theory & Practice of Film Sound - Weis & Belton
130. Theory of Indian Ragas - Ram Avtar Vir
131. Visionary Film - P. Adams Sitney
132. Wanted: Equality and Justice In The Muslim Family - Zainah Anwar, ed.
133. Why Be Normal When You Could Be Happy - Jeanette Winterson
134. Witness to an Era - Frank Moraes
135. Writers' Workshop in a Book - Cheuse and Alvarez
136. Yoga: Mastering the Basics - Sandra Anderson, Rolf Sovik
137. Yonnondio - Tillie Olsen
138. Zen & The Art of Screenwriting - W. Froug
139. Wild - Cheryl Strayed
140. Dread - The Rastafarians of Jamaica - Joseph Owens
141. Folklore From Contemporary Jamaicans - Daryl C. Dance
142. One Blood — The Jamaican Body - Elisa Janine Sobo
143. Rasta & Resistance - Horace Campbell
144. Rastafari Roots & Ideology - Barry Chevannes
145. Roots of Rastafari - Virginia Lee Jacobs
146. The Rastafarians - Leonard E. Barrett, Sr.
147. La Vera Cucina Italiana - Donaldo Soviero
148. The Classic Pasta Cookbook - Giuliano Hazan

2009 Final Book Review

This is it! The final review of books on my reading list for the year.


2009 Final Book Review

• A VietCong Memoir - Truong Nhu Tang
  
  Borrowed? No.
  Recommended? A very, very interesting look at the VN war from the inside. The writer, who now lives in France, was a member of the "middle" - neither pro-Viet Minh nor pro-American, initially. He describes how his sympathies turned towards the Viet Minh (later derisively termed by the Americans "Viet Cong"), and the resulting power shifts and political ideologies created by the long battle by VietNamese nationalists against foreign occupation, colonization, and all the ills attendant thereupon. He suffered for his ideology, and is understandably somewhat bitter as a result, but his memoir is well worth reading.
  Reread? As time permits.
  
  
• Armed Communist Movements in Southeast Asia - Lim Joo Jock, Vani S., Eds.
  
  Borrowed? No.
  Recommended? A series of scholarly papers on the nature and capabilities of the armed factions of the Communist party throughout Southeast Asia. Technical. Requires a reasonable familiarity with the history and politics of the region. Only for those with real interest.
  Reread? Probably not.
  
  
• Comet In Our Sky: Lim Chin Siong in History - Tan Jing Quee and Jomo K.S., Eds
  
  Borrowed? No.
  Recommended? A must for anyone with any interest in the history of Southeast Asia. A revealing look at the machinations of the British and the puppets that they used in order to hold on to the last vestiges of their crumbling empire. It will change your outlook on history and politics, regardless of your current ideology.
  Reread? Yes.
  
  
• Kranji - Romen Bose
  
  Borrowed? No.
  Recommended? Only for those with any serious interest in the WW II as it played out in the Pacific Theater, and the commemoration of the individuals who lost their lives therein. Light reading, despite the heavy subject matter.
  Reread? No.
  
  
• Lavinia - Ursula K. LeGuin
  
  Borrowed? Bri. Blame him.
  Recommended? Interesting, but only to SF fans, feminists, and those with an interest in the classics. Not her best effort, but readable.
  Reread? No.
  
  
• Musicophilia - Oliver Sacks
  
  Borrowed? Bri. Blame him some more.
  Recommended? Highly. Few scientists are as enjoyable and thoroughly readable, in fact, delightful, as Dr. Sacks. La Casa de Los Gatos has never read a book by this author that didn't cause a neuronal tingle, and lots of "Aha!" moments as his skillful hand draws the skeins of various observations into a magical tapestry with the underlying scientific theories. An utter joy for anyone interested in the human brain.
  Reread? Pleez. We begs and begs.
  
  
• Niels Lyhne - Jens Peter Jacobsen
  
  Borrowed? No.
  Recommended? A pretty book. Not sure that I liked it much. It's lyrical. The author is skilled. Had the same feeling as when reading Virginia Woolf. Skilled writer, subject matter not very interesting. Nevertheless, the literary world swoons over both writers. We are willing to accept blame for being an eccentric curmudgeon with unlikely, as it were, likes and dislikes. Feh.
  Reread? Nope.
  
  
• Sisterhood: The Untold Story - Joash Moo
  
  Borrowed? No.
  Recommended? Not really. Interesting only if you have prurient attitudes about transsexuals, or if you want some anecdotal information about transgender life in Malaysia.
  Reread? Nuh-uh.
  
  
• Slaughter and Deception: Batang Kali - Ian Ward & Norma Miraflor
  
  Borrowed? No.
  Recommended? Oh boy. This is one of the incidents that will never be forgotten by the people who experienced it, and that the British Foreign Office has done their best to cover up for decades. Post WWII, Malaya was ready for independence, but the British (who fled like chickens when the Japanese came bicycling over the Burma road) were not ready to give up their colonies. As a result of their wartime Lend-Lease agreements with the US, the British needed resources to repay their indebtedness, and the colonies were their resources. Needless to say, the natives did not agree, having lost many of their number in the fight to defend their nation (after the British, assuring them for decades that they were protected, turned out to have lied, and fled to evade the consequences), and during the terrible war years that followed. This book is the description of one of the post-war crimes that occurred, when British troops massacred an entire village for the "crime" of being, apparently, unable to understand English. Britain's My Lai. Ward and Miraflor have done a fine job of documenting the incident. A must-read for anyone interested in the history of WWII, colonial history, Southeast-Asian history, war crimes, crimes against humanity, and British history.
  Reread? Ah, yeah, sure. Soon as I need to lose some more weight or something.
  
  
• The Communist Struggle in Malaya - Gene Z. Hanrahan
  
  Borrowed? No.
  Recommended? Hanrahan is a "cold warrior." 'Nuff said. Nothing in this book that you couldn't find elsewhere in a more objective presentation.
  Reread? Puh-leez, as in, never.
  
  
• The English Patient - Michael Ondaatje
  
  Borrowed? Ms. Manitoba, of course.
  Recommended? Highly. Frankly, I didn't expect to like this book much. Any time a book is raved about by all and sundry, you can pretty much bet that it appeals to the lowest common denominator, cough, cough, Dan Brown. Ondaatje is, of course, worlds above the likes of Brown. Not sure if I'm ready to put him in my pantheon of Great Writers (Kafka, Garcia Marquez, Rushdie, Zola, Mo Yan, Tanizaki, Tagore, Sharat Chandra, et al). Must read more. Excellent book, highly recommended.
  Reread? Groan. As soon as there is time.
  
  
• The Mak Nyahs: Malaysian Male to Female Transexuals - Teh Yik Koon
  
  Borrowed? No.
  Recommended? This book is actually the result of research into issues affecting the lives of the transgender/transexual community in Malaysia. The author is sympathetic, yet objective. For those interested in gender issues, social issues, transgender/transexual issues in Asia.
  Reread? Not really.
  
  
• The Queen's Gambit - Walter Tevis
  
  Borrowed? That wretched Canuck, at it again.
  Recommended? To chess lovers, Tevis fans, and anyone who needs a fun read. Not a weighty tome, although as chess-impaired, we have to admit that a lot of it just went Whoooosh! right over our heads.
  Reread? No.
  
  
• The Ultimate Guide to Chinese Tea - Bret Hinsch
  
  Borrowed? No.
  Recommended? A good guide for beginners. The writer is quite the Sinophile, and clearly knows his stuff, but if you're not into Chinese tea, this book is a little too too for you.
  Reread? No.
  
  
• The Worst Album Covers In The World Vol. 2 -
  
  Borrowed? The offender shall remain nameless.
  Recommended? Sure, if you want to guffaw at teh Tacky. Enjoyed it. Good break from reading about war crimes.
  Reread? No.
  
  
  
• The Yiddish Policeman's Union - Michael Chabon
  
  Borrowed? The Canadians have infiltrated this blog as well as our heads. We welcome our new Canadian overlords.
  Recommended? Highly. Never liked Michael Chabon before, but this book set that right in a big way. This is a writer who, if he keeps producing stuff like this, is going to win some big-assed fucking prize, and you heard it here last. Love the Yiddishkeit. Read it. You'll love it. Nu, what have you got to lose?
  Reread? Oh hell to the fucking yeah.
  
  
• Vietnam: A Long History - Nguyen Khac Vien
  
  Borrowed? No.
  Recommended? For a history of VietNam from a VietNamese viewpoint, by an eminent and highly respected VietNamese scholar, look no further. Sad to say, the post-revolutionary period to the present is somewhat lacking in the fine detail of the earlier periods, but this is the definitive tome if you want VietNamese history uncoloured by colonial prejudice.
  Reread? Geeze, when? Love to, but WHEN?
  
  
• What is the What - Dave Eggers
  
  Borrowed? Blame those damn Canucks. They're taking over the world, eh?
  Recommended? Highly. Dave Eggers is another writer that I never could get into before. I'm told I need to read Zeitoun to appreciate the full magnificence that is Dave Eggers, but if you can read this book and not think that the writer is simply effortlessly brilliant, well. Dave Eggers, I used to fucking HATE you. I'm converted now. The trick to writing someone else's story is to become invisible, to allow the subject to have their own voice, yet to be the master of that story, to patch it and polish it and put it in order so that someone who doesn't know the protagonist can form an idea of just who that person is, what shaped them, their pains and griefs, their triumphs and losses. Eggers does this masterfully. Zeitoun next.
  Reread? Let's see, was it "Hell to the yeah?"
  
  
• Who Won The Malayan Emergency - Herbert Andrew
  
  Borrowed? No.
  Recommended? Um. Herbert Andrew was, like, some low-level gunny in Malaysia sometime after WWII, during the period called (euphemistically) the Emergency. He has opinions. Not all of them seem to be grounded in fact.
  Reread? This book would totally be a candidate for "Hell to the No."
  
  
• Women Against The Raj - Joyce C. Lebra
  
  Borrowed? No.
  Recommended? For historians, feminists, military buffs, Singaporeans, Malaysians, Indians, Southeast-Asians, and the curious. The book describes the women of Malaysia (of Indian origin), who bravely armed themselves, formed the Rani of Jhansi regiment, and fought against the Japanese. The stories of the women who survived are interwoven with the historical background in which they lived and fought. Fascinating book. Highly recommended.
  Reread? Time, time.
  

Anne Lamott at City Arts & Lectures Monday April 19, 2010

(c) 2010 K Smokey Cormier

I placed the book there but not the mouse ... or Willy Billy Button

On Monday night I went to City Arts & Lectures to see Anne Lamott. There was a podium and she mostly stood there and talked to us about what her life had been like lately. (An exception about standing at the podium: She left the podium once to hand a cough drop to a member of the audience who had been coughing. Lamott herself was nursing a cold.)

She talked about three partamajigglyfrutu things in her life. “Partamajigglyfrutu”? Well, I didn’t have a tape recorder and that’s what my old-as-dirt brain tells me she said. It means something like chaos + joy + loved ones + rich experience + lots of colors. Of course, once again I’m relying on my old-as-dirt brain in remembering how Anne Lamott described that mysterious word.

The things were: birth of her grandson, trip to India ... and ... g'ddam it, I can’t remember the third thing.

Lamott is so generous. She gives of herself so deeply. And, humorously. I sit and listen and think: How does she do it?

She told stories about her family and friends. Interesting stories about flawed mensches that pulled me back from the cynicism and disgust I often feel about humanity. At least the humanity that is out THERE ... not my friends. My friends are what humanity is trying to be. (Those words remind me of a postcard I just bought: "Don't be a snob, hob nob")

She quoted -- really good quotes -- from other writers ... encouraging the writers in the audience to write. Write. Get down to it.

She talked a lot about the alcohol and drug problems of teenagers. That’s one of the things her latest book is about. Frightening for me, mother of two teenagers. But she was also encouraging. The biggest thing for parents is to NOT become ostriches. This is definitely NOT the time to put your head in the ground. Be alert. Give drug tests if necessary. (She didn’t advise this directly but that’s what the parents do in her book.) Keep connected and alert. Don’t be your child’s buddy. You must parent (lovingly) with all your might.

Would I like Anne Lamott to read this? You betcha. Because I want her to know how much I love it that she shares so much of herself. (And I do not mean “overshare overshare!”) It looked effortless and as if she were just stream-of-consciousness talking the other night. But, those were not effortless words. Lamott thought long and hard about everything she said (and probably wrote about all of it too). How do I know? Because it all came together. (Okay, she could be a talented channeler ... but I don’t think so.)

Advice alert! If you ever get a chance to see Anne Lamott in person, please do it. You’ll learn a lot of things that will be flooding into your subconscious ... you’ll be sitting there thinking you’re just having a fun time ... but you’ll be learning too. (Most fun way to learn, in my humble yet haughty opinion.)

If you'd like to read an interview with her, go here.

ANNE LAMOTT, CONGRATULATIONS ON YOUR GRANDBABY. AND ...

MERCI BEAUCOUP BEAUCOUP, ANNE LAMOTT, FOR ALL THOSE GREAT STORIES. (shouting from Oakland to Marin)


Disclaimer: Don't know Ms. Lamott personally, don't know her publisher, don't know anybody in her life. (I believe that to be true ... although there is that Six Degrees of Separation phenomenon.) I'm just an enthusiastic fan. Although I do see her at activist events from time to time and haven't yet been bold enough to gush at her one-on-one.

Book List Updated December 2009

This is what the list looks like now:

Book List 2009

1. A History of Cambodia - David Chandler
   
2. A House in Gross Disorder - Cynthia B. Herrup
   
3. A Journalist, A General, and An Army in Burma - U Thaung
   
4. A Point of Light - Zhou Mei
   
5. A Spy's Revenge - Richard V. Hall
   
6. Agnes Smedley - J.R. & S.R. MacKinnon
   
7. Armed Communist Movements in Southeast Asia - Lim Joo Jock, Vani S., Eds.
   
8. Beating the Blues - Thase & Lang
   
9. Before Kampuchea - GMilton Osborne
10. Bird by Bird - Anne Lamott
    
11. Black Dog of Fate - Peter Balakian
    
12. Captains of Consciousness - Stuart Ewen
    
13. Chinese Customs - Henri Dore
    
14. Colonial Masculinity - Mrinalini Sinha
    
15. Comet In Our Sky: Lim Chin Siong in History - Tan Jing Quee and Jomo K.S., Eds
    
16. Daniel Deronda - George Eliot
    
17. Desis in the House - Sunaina Maira
    
18. Extraordinary Popular Delusions - Charles Mackay
    
19. Finnegan's Wake - James Joyce
    
20. First Person Singular - Joyce Carol Oates
    
21. Flashbacks - Morley Safer
    
22. Folklore of Tamil Nadu - S.M.L. Lakshman Chettiar
    
23. Gandhi's Truth — On the Origins of Militant Nonviolence - Erik H. Erikson
    
24. How I Adore You - Mark Pritchard
    
25. In Pursuit of Mountain Rats - Anthony Short
    
26. Incursion: From America's Chokehold on the NVA Lifelines to the Sacking of the Cambodian Sanctuaries - J.D. Coleman
    
27. Into Cambodia - Keith William Nolan
    
28. Khmers Stand Up! - Justin Corfield
    
29. Kranji - Romen Bose
    
30. Meena, Heroine of Afghanistan - Melody Ermachild Chavis
    
31. Minorities of the Sino-Vietnamese Borderland - Maurice Abadie
    
32. Nakshi Kantha of Bengal - Sila Basak
    
33. Niels Lyhne - Jens Peter Jacobsen
    
34. Nonsense - Robert J. Gula
    
35. No Cowardly Past - James Puthucheary
    
36. Orientalism - Edward W. Said
    
37. Outwitting the Gestapo - Lucie Aubrac
    
38. Pearl S. Buck, A Cultural Biography - Peter Conn
    
39. People's War, People's Army - Vo Nguyen Giap
    
40. Pol Pot - Philip Short
    
41. Primitive Art - Frank Boas
    
42. Prometheus Rising - Robert Anton Wilson
    
43. Reading Lolita In Teheran - Azar Nafisi
    
44. Rosie - Anne Lamott
    
45. Satyajit Ray: The Inner Eye (The Biography Of A Master Film-Maker - Andrew Robinson
    
46. Screenwriting 434 - Lew Hunter
    
47. Self Censorship: Singapore's Shame - James Gomez
    
48. Shanghai Refuge, A Memoir of the WWII Jewish Ghetto - Ernest G. Heppner
    
49. Sherpas Through Their Rituals - Sherry B. Ortner
    
50. Singapore:Journey Into Nationhood
    
51. Singapore & The Many-Headed Monster - Joe Conceicao
    
52. Singapore The Air-Conditioned Nation - Cherian George
    
53. Singapore's People's Action Party: Its History, Organization and Leadership - Pang Cheng Lian
    
54. Sisters in the Resistance - Margaret Collins Weitz
    
55. Slaughter and Deception: Batang Kali - Ian Ward & Norma Miraflor
    
56. Strangers Always A Jewish Family in Wartime Shanghai - Rena Krasno
    
57. Stress and Mental Health in Malaysian Society - Tan Chee Khuan
    
58. The Art of the Novel - Milan Kundera
    
59. The Autobiography of An Unknown Indian - Nirad C. Chaudhary
    
60. The Bengal Muslims 1871 - 1906 - Ahmed
    
61. The Birth of Vietnam - Keith Weller Taylor
    
62. The British Humiliation of Burma - Terence R. Blackburn
    
63. The Communist Struggle in Malaya - Gene Z. Hanrahan
    
64. The Devil Finds Work - James Baldwin
    
65. The Emergence of Modern Turkey - Bernard Lewis
    
66. The Hungry Tide - Amitav Ghosh
    
67. The Gift - Lewis Hyde
    
68. The Lives of Agnes Smedley - Ruth Price
    
69. The Mak Nyahs Malaysian Male to Female Transexuals - Teh Yik Koon
    
70. The March of Folly From Troy To Vietnam - Barbara W. Tuchman
    
71. The Mind's I - Hofstadter & Dennett
    
72. The Plague - Albert Camus
    
73. The Political Economy of Social Control in Singapore - Christopher Tremewan
    
74. The Rape of Bangladesh - Mascarenhas
    
75. The Remembered Village - M.N. Srinivasan
    
76. The Rise & Fall of the Knights Templar - Gordon Napier
    
77. The Singapore Council of Women and The Women's Movement - Phyllis Ghim Lian Chew
    
78. The Syonan Years I - Lee Geok Boi
    
79. The Syonan Years II - Lee Geok Boi
    
80. The Tin Drum - Gunther Grass
    
81. The Ugly Chinaman - Bo Yang
    
82. The Ultimate Guide to Chinese Tea - Bret Hinsch
    
83. The Way of All Flesh - Samuel Butler
    
84. The Worst Album Covers In The World Vol. 2 -
    
85. Time Bombs in Malaysia - Lim Kit Siang
    
86. Virtual Reality - Howard Rheingold
    
87. Vietnam: A Long History - Nguyen Khac Vien
    
88. Vietnam & America: The Most Comprehensive Documented History of the Vietnam War - Gettleman, et al
    
89. Warsaw of Asia: The Rape of Manila - Boni Escoda
    
90. Who Killed Aung San? - Kin Oung
    
91. Who Won The Malayan Emergency - Herbert Andrew
    
92. Witness to an Era - Frank Moraes
    
93. Women Against The Raj - Joyce C. Lebra
    
94. Women in the Holocaust - Dalia Ofer, Lenore J. Weitzman, Eds.
    
95. Writers' Workshop in a Book - Cheuse and Alvarez
    
96. Your Memory: A User's Guide - Alan Baddeley

Needless to say, most of these books won't have been read by December 31st. But — there ain't no harm in trying. I started off with a book list of 180 titles. The number increased to 231. I'll publish the final book reviews and an updated list for 2010 on New Years' Eve, showing exactly how many books I've read.

Will I win my pizza? I worked for it! Remember that much of this time was spent lying flat on my back drugged out beyond readability! Plus there was the monumental editing task I undertook in late August/early September, that kept me from reading for weeks! Pizza! I can has!

Jack Kerouac Quote for Writers

photographer unknown

I want to work in revelations, not just spin silly tales for money. I want to fish as deep down as possible into my own subconscious in the belief that once that far down, everyone will understand, because they are the same as me that far down.
-- Jack Kerouac

Happy Birthday, Tony Kushner!

Tony Kushner was born on this day in 1956 -- in New York City. He is a very fine writer. Here are two quotes from is play Angels in America ...


"Fabulous. If you possess it, you don’t need to ask what it is. When you attempt to delineate it, you move away from it. Fabulous is one of those words that provide a measure of the degree to which a person or event manifests a particular oppressed subculture’s most distinctive, invigorating features. What are the salient features of fabulousness? Irony. Tragic History. Defiance. Gender-fuck. Glitter. Drama. It is not butch. It is not hot. The cathexis surrounding fabulousness is not necessarily erotic. The fabulous is not delineated by age or beauty. It is raw materials reworked into illusion. To be truly fabulous, one must completely triumph over tragedy, age, and physical insufficiencies. The fabulous is the rapturous embrace of difference, the discovering of self not in that which has rejected you but in that which makes you unlike, the dislike, the other."


"Don't be afraid; people are so afraid; don't be afraid to live in the raw wind, naked, alone...Learn at least this: What you are capable of. Let nothing stand in your way."

I saw Angels in America twice -- once in New York City in 1994, then again in San Francisco in 1995 with my reading group.

It was F-A-B-U-L-O-U-S.

Books: Beauty Should Be Part Of The Experience

I'm reading a book by M.C. Ricklefs, titled A History of Modern Indonesia Since c.1300, and if a book can make your blood boil, this one's certainly high on the list. Professor Ricklefs peppers his account of the exploitation, murder, and selling (and buying) of hundreds and thousands of Indonesian peasants, farmers, aristocrats, merchants, sailors, and fishermen with words like "compelled," as in "The Dutch were compelled" to put 20,000 people to death, or burn down cities in which men, women, and children alike, perished. (Note: paraphrase; emphasis mine.)

What compelled them, it appears, was the desire to fill their coffers with Indonesian gold, and monies earned from the wholesale theft of Indonesian pepper, tin, gambier, rice, cloves, mace, nutmeg, and human bodies. So their burning of clove plantations farmed by Indonesian peasants was "necessary" and "important," while the Indonesian resistance to such naked greed was "foolhardy" and marked by "deviousness" in breaking treaties in which all advantage accrued to the Dutch, and precious little to the indigenous people. Having forced the natives at gunpoint to send some 20 million per year (in modern terms probably something close to a half billion) to the "home country" (the home of the Dutch, that is), they then had the unmitigated gall to add to this "debt," which was negotiated by treaty, the additional cost of enforcing it. That is to say, they charged the Indonesians for the cost of Dutch military and arms required to subjugate the Indonesians in something close to, if not actually outright, slavery.

To his credit, Ricklefs has admitted that the so-called "Ethical Policy" of the Dutch which led them to stop slavery and the trade in human flesh was more honoured in the breach than in the practise; that is to say, when the bottom line was threatened, all ethical considerations flew out the window with unseemly haste. Moreover, the Governors General who "governed" the Indonesian colonies were current or former directors of Royal Shell, more interested in seizing the oil riches of Sumatra and monopolizing the spice trade than educating the "natives." How many Indonesians were exiled to Sri Lanka and Suriname and South Africa, we will never know. How many died there, unable to speak the language, friendless, betrayed, isolated, yearning for their beautiful and beloved homeland.

No wonder the Indonesians took their Independence from those wretched people with such rage, when they could. The miracle is that they did not slaughter outright every man, woman, and child of these shameless, greedy, exploitative bastard children of syphilitic turtles.

Pardon my French. Or should I say my Dutch.

In the event, it was absolutely necessary as soon as possible thereafter, to find something a tad more soothing, if you get my drift. One requires one's prandial excursions to be accompanied by things soothing to the soul. A pleasant glass of wine. A vase of flowers on the table. The strains of delightful music. A book to read betimes, one which, hopefully, calms the soul and aids the digestion.

Therefore I turned to the (borrowed, coveted, expensive, hard to obtain, but available here, if you want it) following book, to the delight of my soul and my digestion alike.

Luntaya acheiq, An Illustrated Book of Burmese Court Textiles

If you have the money to spend, you should buy this book. Of course, I'd prefer you buy it for ME, but I'm willing to concede that you probably don't know me. Buy it for yourself then, see if I care. Selfish lout.

Srsly. The photographs alone are worth the cost of the book, but it does include delightful information about the techniques used, Burmese costume, mythical birds, how to make dyes from rocks, bark, roots, and the like, and the history of silk. You, too, could have a better dining experience with this book carefully placed far away from any potential dangerous spills yet available to your feasting eyes. Everyone should read at least one beautiful book a year.

Did you know it takes 200 shuttles for the warp (or is it the weft?) of one of these incredible pieces of fabric featured in the book? It can take up to six months for two weavers to create a single longyi (the national garment of Burma, a simple, yet stunningly beautiful piece of fabric sewn into a tube and worn wrapped tightly around the waist). There's an interesting little digression into the nature of gold and silver tinseled thread, which is often used in the weaving, especially of the more formal garments; and the longyis worn for certain special Buddhist ceremonies are the most delightful shade of a wild, passionate pink. In fact, pink is too wussy a word to describe that hue. Let's call it a muted red, instead, with blue tones. Woof! (Or warp?)

Another book (which I did get my grubby little paws on) that lovers of the beautiful ought to break down and shell out the shekels for:

Nakshi Kantha of Bengal

There are many books available on Nakshi kantha, which is a Bengali folk art using embroidery to make recycling a beautiful thing. Basically, the art of nakshi kantha is mostly found in rural communities. When clothing such as saris and dhotis becomes too worn for wear any more, the ladies of the community cut out the most frayed and worn parts and incorporate the rest into a new article of great use: the nakshi kantha. They stitch together several layers of old saris or dhotis or a combination thereof, making an article of the softest cotton, but with some weight and heft, thanks to the number of layers used. Then they embroider the entire article, first with a border, which is often an elaborate sari border, sometimes with zari (gold or silver thread). The center of the piece hosts a scene from the needle artist's own life or a rural scene or whatever the artist wishes to create. Often, this includes, or centers upon, a tree-of-life, or a mandala. At the corners, the artist may position am-pata (mango leaf shapes, known as "paisley" to non-Indians), elaborately decorated. Depending on the artist, the piece may include appliqué. Shapes are outlined in darker or heavier stitch and filled in with delicate running stitches. Other types of stitch are also used.

An artist might include events from her own life, depending on the size of the piece; often women embroider kitchen implements, stoves, sacred words or objects, words of wisdom, expressions of affection, and the like. Sometimes they depict stylized elephants or peacocks, cows, birds, cats, chickens, and other elements of their everyday lives.

The finished product is most often used as a quilt, although smaller pieces are used to wrap religious books or gifts. Some end up on walls, as part of a family's history. Some of the more elaborate kanthas depict British soldiers confronting villagers. I'm sure there's a political history somewhere in there, if I can only uncover it.

The book, published in India, is filled with photographs of ancient and beautiful kanthas collected over several hundred years. It also includes some excellent modern examples of the art, which continues to flourish in the most lively manner in the current states of Bangladesh and West Bengal. Interspersed between the photographs (which alone are worth the price of the book) are discussions of the art of nakshi kantha, the lives of women in rural areas of Bengal, and other important historical and folkloric information.

Anyone who is feeling especially generous ought to buy me both books. Alternatively, buy them for yourself and write me about how you liked them.

Books to read in 2009

Dear Readers,

I have compiled my booklist of books to read in 2009. But, I’ve gone about it a different way this year. I’ve re-vamped my list. I’m not going to read for research. That story about the Irish-American lesbian in New York City I was starting to write will have to wait.

Why create a booklist anyway if I’m not trying to guide research for a story? Why not read whatever I want when I want? Well, dear readers, I am a Virgo and I love lists. That’s one thing. The other is that I am easily distracted by the next new book. I want a path. I can go off it and have little adventures with books not on the list. But, I want to concentrate this year on video and video editing. So, I asked meself: What books do you really want to read this year? And I looked around the house and compiled a list.

Then, I looked at how many I’ve read in the past couple of years and took that number and added a few more. And limited the books on my list to that number. I also limited the amount of nonfiction. Who was I kidding putting all those nonfiction books on my lists in years past?

I feel pretty darn good about the list. It’s not overwhelming. Feels just about right. And I like the focus on video.


Books to read in 2009


Fiction

Double Identity - Margaret Peterson Maddox (Young Adult)

Vive la Paris - Esme Raji Codell (Young Adult)

Resurrection Row - Anne Perry

Field of Blood - Denise Mina

The Dead Hour - Denise Mina

Shame - Salman Rushdie

The Enchantress of Florence - Salman Rushdie

Wuthering Heights - Emily Brontë

The Deptford Trilogy - Robertson Davies (re-read)
comprising these novels:
Fifth Business
The Manticore
World of Wonders

A Prayer for Owen Meany - John Irving

Mansfield Park - Jane Austen

Northanger Abbey - Jane Austen

The Complete Stories of Truman Capote

A Thread of Grace - Mary Doria Russell

Noli Me Tangere - José Rizal

Our Town -Thornton Wilder

Jazz - Toni Morrison

A Mercy - Toni Morrison

Underworld - Don Delillo

Fugitive Pieces - Anne Michaels

The Kalahari Typing School for Men - Alexander McCall Smith

In the Company of Cheerful Ladies - Alexander McCall Smith

The Tears of the Giraffe - Alexander McCall Smith

Song for Anninho - Gayl Jones


Nonfiction

Undiscovered - Debra Winger

In the Blink of an Eye: A Perspective on Film Editing - Walter Murch

Cut by Cut: Editing Your Film or Video - Gael Chandler

Lighting for Digital Video and Television - John Jackman

Ida: A Sword Among Lions: Ida B. Wells and the Campaign Against Lynching

Paris to the Moon - Adam Gopnik

Dark Age Ahead - Jane Jacobs

Step Across This Line: Collected Nonfiction 1992-2002 - Salman Rushdie

Two Gardners: A Friendship in Letters - Katharine S. White and Elizabeth Lawrence

Race: How Blacks and Whites Think and Feel About the American Obsession - Studs Terkel

Toolbox for Sustainable City Living - Scott Kellogg and

All-Night Party: The Women of Bohemian Greenwich Village and Harlem, 1913 - 1930 - Andrea Barnet

Ellis Island Interviews: Immigrants and Their Stories In Their Own Words - Peter Morton Goan

Mole People: Life in the Tunnels Beneath New York City - Jennifer Toth


Reading Like a Writer: A Guide for People Who Love Books and For Those Who Want to Write Them - Francine Prose

Letters from Black America - edited by Pamela Newkirk

Stella Adler - The Art of Acting: preface by Marlon Brando compiled and edited by Howard Kissel (Applause Acting Series) (Hardcover)
by Howard Kissel, Stella Adler

Haroun and the Sea of Stories by Salman Rushdie: a quote

So Iff the water genie told Haroun about the Ocean of the Stream of Stories, and even though he was full of a sense of hopelessness and failure the magic of the Ocean began to have an effect on Haroun. He looked into the water and saw that it was made up of a thousand thousand thousand and one different currents, each one a different colour, weaving in and out of one another like a liquid tapestry of breathtaking complexity; and Iff explained that these were the Streams of Story, that each coloured strand represented and contained a single tale. Different parts of the Ocean contained different sorts of stories, and as all the stories that had ever been told and many that were still in the process of being invented could be found here, the Ocean of the Streams of Story was in fact the biggest library in the universe. And because the stories were held here in fluid form, they retained the ability to change, to become new versions of themselves, to join up with other stories and so become yet other stories; so that unlike a library of books, the Ocean of the Streams of Story was much more than a storeroom of yarns. It was not dead, but alive.

"And if you are very, very careful, or very, very highly skilled, you can dip a cup into the Ocean," Iff told Haroun, "like so," and here he produced a little golden cup from another of his waistcoat pockets, "and you can fill it with water from a single, pure Stream of Story, like so," as he did precisely that.

-- Salman Rushdie

Jack Kerouac's On the Road, Published on This Day in 1957

From the Writer's Almanac ... I want to post this today because there are so few French Canadians (or are they just invisible to us?) in U.S. literature ...

It was on this day in 1957 that Jack Kerouac's book On the Road was published (books by this author). His inspiration for the book came ten years earlier. He was living in New York City with his mother, trying to write his first novel, when he met a drifter named Neal Cassady, an ex-convict from Denver who had actually been born in a car, and who became a car thief when he was fourteen years old. By the time Kerouac met him, Cassady had stolen more than five hundred cars and had been arrested ten times. Kerouac later wrote, "All my other current friends were intellectuals ... [but Cassady] was a wild yea-saying overburst of American Joy."

Kerouac and Cassady became close friends, but Cassady eventually had to move back to Denver. Kerouac wanted to follow him. He started reading histories of the great American migrations out west. He studied maps of the new highways that ran all the way from the East Cost to California. He was particularly attracted to Route 6, drawn in a red line on his map, which led from Cape Cod to Los Angeles. He made up his mind to follow it all the way to Denver, where he could meet up with Neal Cassady. He scraped up enough money for the journey and set out in July of 1947.

Kerouac's journey did not start out well. He rode a trolley to the edge of Yonkers and then hoped to hitchhike the rest of the way across the country. But when he reached Route 6, at the border of Connecticut, he got caught in a rain storm and there were no cars to pick him up. He finally gave up, made his way back to New York, and used almost all his money to buy a bus ticket to Chicago.

He had better luck hitchhiking once he got outside of Chicago. When he crossed the Mississippi River, he began to feel that he was really part of the American West. In Omaha, he was amazed to see his first real cowboy, a man in boots and a ten-gallon hat. He rode all the way from Nebraska to Wyoming on the back of a flatbed truck with a group of hobos. He saw the snowy peaks of the Rocky Mountains for the first time.

When he finally made it to Denver, he met up with Cassady and his old friend Allen Ginsberg, and the three of them partied for weeks. Kerouac eventually moved on to San Francisco, where he worked odd jobs for a while. He finally took a bus back to New York City in October, and he was so broke that he had to panhandle for bus fare to get to his mom's house in Ozone Park.

Kerouac knew he wanted to use the experience for a novel, but he struggled with various fictional plotlines: a man in search of his father, a convict in search of his runaway daughter, a young man in search of his lost love, and so forth. He finally figured out how to write the book after receiving a series rambling letters from Cassady, one of which was 40,000 words long. He realized the novel had to be written about Cassady and in Cassady's own voice, which Kerouac described as "all first person, fast, mad, confessional ... with spew and rush, without halt, all unified and molten flow; no boring moments, everything significant and interesting, sometimes breathtaking in speed and brilliance."

So, in April of 1951, Kerouac sat down at his kitchen table, wound a continuous roll of paper into a typewriter, turned on an all-night Harlem jazz radio station, and in twenty days wrote the first draft of his new novel. The text was single-spaced, with no commas or paragraph breaks. Kerouac showed it to various publishers but they all turned him down.

He spent the next several years working on other novels, but finally in 1957, he decided to revise his novel to make it more acceptable, with paragraph breaks and normal punctuation. He went through many different titles, including "Souls on the Road," "American Road Night," "Home and the Road," "Love on the Road," and "Along the Wild Road," until he finally chose the simplest title: On the Road.

On the Road came out on this day in 1957, and a great review appeared in The New York Times. It became a best-seller at the time, and it still sells about 100,000 copies a year.

Notice how there's no mention of Kerouac's being French Canadian?


More from Wikipedia ...

Family and childhood

Jack Kerouac was born Jean-Louis Lebris de Kerouac, in Lowell, Massachusetts to French-Canadian parents, Léo-Alcide Kerouac and Gabrielle-Ange Lévesque, natives of the province of Québec, Canada. Like many other Quebecers of their generation, the Lévesques and Kerouacs were part of the Quebec emigration to New England to find employment. His father was related to Brother Marie-Victorin (né Conrad Kirouac), one of Canada's most prominent botanists and his mother was second cousin to future Quebec premier René Lévesque.

Kerouac often gave conflicting stories about his family history and the origins of his surname. Though his father was born to a family of potato farmers in the village of St-Hubert, he often claimed aristocratic descent, sometimes from a Breton noble granted land after the Battle of Quebec, whose sons all married Native Americans. However, research has shown him to be the descendant of a middle-class merchant settler, whose sons married French Canadians. He was part Native American through his mother's largely Norman-side of the family. He also had various stories on the etymology of his surname, usually tracing it back to Irish, Breton, or other Celtic roots. In one interview he claimed it was the name of a dead Celtic language and in another said it was from the Irish for "language of the water" and related to "Kerwick".[2] The name, though Breton, seems to derive from the name of one of several hamlets in Brittany near Rosporden.[3]

Kerouac did not start to learn English until the age of six, and at home, he and his family spoke joual, a Quebec French dialect.[4][5] When he was four he was profoundly affected by the death of his nine-year-old brother, Gérard, from rheumatic fever, an event later described in his novel Visions of Gerard. Some of Kerouac's poetry was written in French, and in letters written to friend Allen Ginsberg towards the end of his life he expressed his desire to speak his parents' native tongue again. Recently, it was discovered that Kerouac first started writing On the Road in French, a language in which he also wrote two unpublished novels.[6] The writings are in dialectal Quebec French, and predate the first plays of Michel Tremblay by a decade.

Kirouac was the original spelling ... like so many immigrants, the immigration official at the door to the U.S. of A misspelled the name -- according to family members still living.

Like many other people, French Canadians in the U.S. are a kind of invisible ethnicity. Most people don't know much about us or our history. Like in the Writer's Almanac, we aren't even identified as French Canadians.

Updated Book List

Oh, look, it's down to only 95. To be read before the last day of this year.

Anyone want to bet us a sushi dinner (at your expense, of course) that we'll make it?

Yii! What, I say, what possessed us?

1. A History of Malaysia - Barbara Watson Andaya & Leonard Andaya
   
2. A History of Modern Indonesia - M.C. Ricklefs
   
3. A History of Selangor - J. M. Gullick
   
4. A Point of Light - Zhou Mei
   
5. A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
   
6. A Will For Freedom - Romen Bose
   
7. Agnes Smedley - J.R. & S.R. MacKinnon
   
8. Asian Labour In The Japanese Wartime Empire - Paul H. Kratoska, Ed.
   
9. Baba Nonnie Goes To War - Ron Mitchell
   
10. Between Two Oceans - Murkett, Miskic, Farrell, & Chiang
    
11. Bird by Bird - Anne Lamott
    
12. Chandranath - Sharat Chandra Chattopadhyay
    
13. Chinese Customs - Henri Dore
    
14. Clay Walls - Kim Ronyoung
    
15. Daniel Deronda - George Eliot
    
16. Dictionary of the Khazars - Milorad Pavic
    
17. Finnegan's Wake - James Joyce
    
18. From Pacific War to Merdeka - James Wong Wing On
    
19. Golden Gate - Vikram Seth
    
20. How I Adore You - Mark Pritchard
    
21. In Pursuit of Mountain Rats - Anthony Short
    
22. In The Grip of a Crisis - Rudy Mosbergen
    
23. Kempeitai, Japan's Dreaded Military Police - Raymond Lamont-Brown
    
24. Kempeitai:The Japanese Secret Service Then And Now - Richard Deacon
    
25. Kim - Rudyard Kipling
    
26. Krait:The Fishing Boat That Went To War - Lynette Ramsay Silver
    
27. Kranji - Romen Bose
    
28. Labour Unrest in Malaya - Tai Yuen
    
29. Lest We Forget - Alice M. Coleman & Joyce E. Williams
    
30. Life As The River Flows - Agnes Khoo
    
31. Living Hell - Goh Chor Boon
    
32. Malay Folk Beliefs - Mohd Taib Osman
    
33. Malaya and Singapore During the Japanese Occupation - Paul H. Kratoska, Ed.
    
34. Malaysia - R. Emerson
    
35. Modern Japan, A Historical Survey - Hane Mikiso
    
36. Mrs. Dalloway - Virginia Woolf
    
37. Night Butterfly - Tan Guan Heng
    
38. No Cowardly Past - James Puthucheary
    
39. Operation Matador - Ong Chit Chung
    
40. Orlando - Virginia Woolf
    
41. Outwitting the Gestapo - Aubrac
    
42. Palli Samaj (The Homecoming) - Sharat Chandra Chattopadhyay
    
43. Power Politics - Arundhati Roy
    
44. Prehistory of the Indo-Malayan Archipelago - Peter Bellwood
    
45. Red Star Over Malaya - Cheah Boon Kheng
    
46. Rehearsal for War - Ban Kah Choon, Yap Hong Kuan
    
47. Revolt in Paradise - K'tut Tantri
    
48. Rhymes of Li Yu Tsai - Chao Shu Li
    
49. Rosie - Anne Lamott
    
50. Shanghai Refuge, A Memoir of the WWII Jewish Ghetto - Ernest G. Heppner
    
51. Singapore & The Many-Headed Monster - Joe Conceicao
    
52. Sisters in the Resistance - Margaret Collins Weitz
    
53. Soldiers Alive - Ishikawa Tatsuzo
    
54. Strangers Always A Jewish Family in Wartime Shanghai - Rena Krasno
    
55. Taming the Wind of Desire - Carol Laderman
    
56. The Art of the Novel - Milan Kundera
    
57. The Crippled Tree - Han Suyin
    
58. The Demon-Haunted World - Carl Sagan
    
59. The Double Tenth Trial - C. Sleeman, S.C. Sillein, Eds.
    
60. The End of the War - Romen Bose
    
61. The Gift - Lewis Hyde
    
62. The Malay Archipelago - Alfred Russell Wallace
    
63. The Malayan Union Controversy, 1942-1948 - Albert Lau
    
64. The Nanking Massacre - M.E.Sharpe
    
65. The Origins of The Second World War in Asia and the Pacific - Akira Iriye
    
66. The Pacific War - Ienaga Saburo
    
67. The Plague - Albert Camus
    
68. The Price of Peace - Foong Choon Hon, Ed.
    
69. The Rape of Nanking - Iris Chang
    
70. The Tin Drum - Gunther Grass
    
71. The War in Malaya - A.E. Percival
    
72. The Way of All Flesh - Samuel Butler
    
73. Three Came Home - Agnes Newton Keith
    
74. To The Lighthouse - Virginia Woolf
    
75. Tokyo Rose - Masayo Duus
    
76. War & Memory in Malaysia & Singapore - P. Lim Pui Huen, Diana Wong, Eds.
    
77. Women in the Holocaust - Dalia Ofer, Lenore J. Weitzman, Eds.
    
78. Women, Outcastes, Peasants & Rebels - Kalpana Bardhan
    
79. Writers' Workshop in a Book - Cheuse and Alvarez
    
80. You'll Die in Singapore - Charles McCormac
    
81. A Choice of Evils - Meira Chand
    
82. Force 136:Story of A Resistance Fighter in WWII - Tan Chong Tee
    
83. King Rat - James Clavell
    
84. Murder on the Verandah - Eric Lawlor
    
85. No Dram of Mercy - Sybil Kathigasu
    
86. Rehearsal for War - Ban Kah Choon, Yap Hong Kuan
    
87. Singa, Lion of Malaya - Gurchan Singh
    
88. Singapore The Pregnable Fortress - Peter Elphick
    
89. Sinister Twilight - Noel Barber
    
90. Sold For Silver - Janet Lim
    
91. Syonan - My Story (The Japanese Occupation of Singapore) - Mamoru Shinozaki
    
92. The Fall of Shanghai - Noel Barber
    
93. The Jungle is Neutral - F. Spencer Chapman
    
94. The War Of The Running Dogs - Noel Barber
    
95. You'll Never Get Off The Island - Keith Wilson
    
    

Lorraine Hansberry, Rest in Peace

Gorgeous photo by David Moses Attie (c) 1960.

Today would have been her 78th birthday. May she rest in peace.

Last year I read A Raisin in the Sun and loved it. It remains an extremely powerful play. Highly recommended.

Here are some quotes from Lorraine Hansberry:

• There is always something left to love. And if you ain't learned that, you ain't learned nothing. Have you cried for that boy today? I don't mean for yourself and for the family 'cause we lost the money. I mean for him; what he's been through and what it done to him. Child, when do you think is the time to love somebody the most; when they done good and made things easy for everybody? Well then, you ain't through learning -- because that ain't the time at all. It's when he's at his lowest and can't believe in hisself 'cause the world done whipped him so. When you starts measuring somebody, measure him right child, measure him right. Make sure you done taken into account what hills and valleys he come through before he got to wherever he is. [from Raisin in the Sun]


More quotes from Lorraine Hansberry ...

"Do I remain a revolutionary? Intellectually -- without a doubt. But am I prepared to give my body to the struggle or even my comforts? This is what I puzzle about."


• "The thing that makes you exceptional, if you are at all, is inevitably that which must also make you lonely." [This quote really struck me. I'm gonna think on this all day ..]


• "Some scholars have estimated that in the three centuries that the European slave trade flourished, the African continent has lost one hundred million of its people. No one, to my knowledge, has ever paid reparations to the descendants of black men; indeed, they have not yet really acknowledged the fact of the crime against humanity, which was the conquest of Africa. But then -- history has not yet been concluded -- has it?"

And I must include a quote from the poet, educator, and activist -- Nikky Finney. She wrote this dedication for her book of extraordinary poems The World is Round:

For the tender-hearted insurgent Lorraine Hansberry, who "finished my thoughts" long before I had them.

And let's end with this one:

Let your motto be resistance.

An Excerpt from Nickel and Dimed

An excerpt from Nickel and Dimed by Barbara Ehrenreich:

Friday evening: I’ve been in Minneapolis for just over fifteen hours, driven from the southern suburbs to the northern ones, dropped off a half a dozen apps [job applications], and undergone two face-to-face interviews. Job searches take their toll, even in the case of totally honest applicants, and I am feeling particularly damaged. The personality tests, for example: the truth is I don’t much care if my fellow workers are getting high in the parking lot or even lifting the occasional retail item, and I certainly wouldn’t snitch if I did. Nor do I believe that management rules by divine right or the undiluted force of superior knowledge, as the “surveys” demand you acknowledge. It whittles you down to lie up to fifty times in the space of fifteen minutes or so it takes to do a “survey,” even when there’s a higher moral purpose to serve. Equally draining is the effort to look both perky and compliant at the same time, for half an hour or more at a stretch, because while you need to evince “initiative,” you don’t want to come across as someone who might initiate something like a union organizing drive. Then there is the threat of the drug tests, hanging over me like a fast-approaching SAT. It rankles -- at some deep personal, physical level -- to know that the many engaging qualities I believe I have to offer -- friendliness, reliability, willingness to learn -- can all be trumped by my pee.

Book Recommendation

Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America (Paperback)
by Barbara Ehrenreich

I am thoroughly enjoying this one. It’s a real page turner. Nonfiction page turner. Ehrenreich takes low-paying jobs and describes her experiences and those of her co-workers. It reminds me of so many jobs I had in my late teens and throughout my 20’s. Except in those days you could live with 3 or 4 of your friends and get by on one job. Nowadays you need to be working 2 jobs. Exhausting!

Plus, what I haven’t read in reviews of this book is how funny Ehrenreich is. And humor is a welcome balance to the grimness of many (all?) of her subjects’ lives.
Highly recommended.

Books I want to read but won’t have the time to this year

Gang Leader for a Day: A Rogue Sociologist Takes to the Streets (Hardcover) by Sudhir Venkatesh

"Gang Leader for a Day is not another voyeuristic look into the supposedly tawdry, disorganized life of the black poor. Venkatesh entered the Chicago gang world at the height of the crack epidemic and what he found was a tightly organized community, held together by friendship and compassion as well as force. I couldn't stop reading, and ended up loving this brave, reckless young scholar, as well as the gang leader J.T., who has to be one of the greatest characters ever to emerge from something that could be called sociological research."
-- Barbara Ehrenreich

"Gang Leader for a Day is an absolutely incredible book. Sudhir Venkatesh's memoir of his years observing life in Chicago's inner city is a book unlike any other I have read, equal parts comedy and tragedy. How is it that a na•ve suburban kid ends up running a crack gang (if only for a day) on his way to becoming one of the world's leading scholars? You have to read it to find out, but heed this warning: don't pick up the book unless you have a few hours to spare because I promise you will not be able to put it down once you start."
--Steven D. Levitt, co-author, Freakonomics
Venkatesh


Free Lunch: How the Wealthiest Americans Enrich Themselves at Government Expense (and StickYou with the Bill) (Hardcover) by David Cay Johnston
“If you’re concerned about congressional earmarks, stock options (especially backdated options), hedge fund tax breaks, abuse of eminent domain, subsidies to sports teams, K Street lobbyists, the state of our health-care system, to say nothing of the cavernous gap between rich and poor, you’ll read this fine book—as I did—with a growing sense of outrage. Free Lunch makes it clear that it’s high time for ‘We the People’ to stand up and be counted.”
—John C. Bogle, founder and former chairman, The Vanguard Group

“With clarity, conciseness, and cool, fact-saturated analysis, Mr. Johnston, the premier investigative reporter on how industry and commerce shift risks and costs to taxpayers, sends the ultimate message to all Americans—either we demand to have a say or we will continue to pay, pay, and pay.”
—Ralph Nader


The Squandering of America: How the Failure of Our Politics Undermines Our Prosperity (Hardcover) by Robert Kuttner

"If I could assign one book to all the presidential candidates it would be this one. Robert Kuttner, perhaps the most insightful economic commentator in the country, has done it again."
--Barbara Ehrenreich
"The Squandering of America brilliantly explains how we once created a cooperative and equitable prosperity, how that economy was captured by a financial elite, and how to reclaim America's economic and political
future."
--William Greider

Salman Rushdie: new book in June

Yahoo reports that Salman Rushdie is coming out with a new book in June. And it's set in Florence. I can't wait!!

Books To Read in 2008 - Ms Manitoba

My dear wonderful friend, PolCat, talked with me in earnest in December of 2006 and convinced me that it would be a good idea to make a list of books that I intend to read in the coming year. I don't have to be rigid about it. Just use it as a guideline and it will help focus my reading. Especially that I'm trying to write a story about a lesbian in the 50's in New York City. So you'll see this list has lots of books about New York City, working class people, lesbians, women, and books about the 40's and 50's. Plus, there are lots of other books mixed in for variety.



Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie

Shame - Salman Rushdie

Prep: A Novel - Curtis Sittenfeld

Missing Men - Joyce Johnson

More Stories by Canadian Women - Edited by Rosemary Sullivan

Queerly Classed: Gay Men and Lesbians Write about Class - Edited by Susan Raffo

The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism - Naomi Klein

Proof a play - David Auburn

A Prayer for Owen Meany - John Irving

Seize the Day - Saul Bellow

Henderson the Rain King - Saul Bellow

The Adventures of Augie March - Saul Bellow

The Dangling Man - Saul Bellow

Longtitude: The True Story of a Lone Genius Who Solved the Greatest Scientific Problem of His Time - Dava Sobel

Race: How Blacks and Whites Think and Feel About the American Obsession - Studs Terkel

Ellis Island Interviews: Immigrants and Their Stories In Their Own Words - Peter Morton Goan

Our Town -Thornton Wilder

All-Night Party: The Women of Bohemian Greenwich Village and Harlem, 1913 - 1930 - Andrea Barnet

Mole People: Life in the Tunnels Beneath New York City - Jennifer Toth

Small Craft Advisory: A Book About the Building of a Boat - Louis D. Rubin, Jr.

New York Panorama: The Best of 1930’s New York, as seen by the Federal Writers’ Project -- Federal Writers’ Project

New York 365 Days - From the Photo Archives of The New York Times

Greenwich Village: Culture and Counterculture - Rick Beard and Leslie Cohen Berlowitz editors

The New York World’s Fair 1939/1940 in 155 Photographs by Richard Wurts and Others - Selection, Arrangement and Text by Stanley Applebaum

A Tree Grows in Brooklyn - Betty Smith

Jazz - Toni Morrison

Call it Sleep -- Henry Roth [re-read]

You Can't Go Home Again - Thomas Wolfe

Underworld - Don Delillo

Manhattan Transfer - John Dos Passo

Fugitive Pieces - Anne Michaels

Irish Writers on Writing - Edited by Eavan Boland

The Poems of Emily Dickinson - Edited by R.W. Franklin

This Year You Write Your Novel - Walter Mosley

Love Poems from God: Twelve Sacred Voices from the East and West - Edited by Daniel Ladinsky

Inside Out: A Memoir of the Blacklist - Walter Bernstein

The Irish Americans: The Immigrant Experience - William D. Griffin

Our Times: The Illustrated History of the 20th Century - Editor in Chief: Lorraine Glennon

This Fabulous Century, Vol. V 1940 to 1950 - Editors of Time-Life Books

This Fabulous Century, Vol. V 1950 to 1960 - Editors of Time-Life Books

New News Out of Africa: Uncovering Africa's Renaissance - Charlayne Hunter-Gault

The Uncertainty of Everyday Life, 1915-1945 - Harvey Green

To Prove My Blood: A Tale of Emigrations & the Afterlife - Philip Brady

The American Irish Revival - edited by Kevin M. Cahill, M.D.

The Portable Beat Reader - edited by Ann Charters

Letters on Literature and Politics 1912 - 1972 - Edmund Wilson; Selected and edited by Elena Wilson

Foxfire: Confessions of a Girl Gang - Joyce Carol Oates

Candyman - Simone Poirier-Bures

The Long Loneliness: The Autobiography of the Legendary Catholic Social Activist - Dorothy Day

Something in the Air - Marc Fisher

The Island at the Center of the World: The Epic Story of Dutch Manhattan and the Forgotten Colony that Shaped America - Russell Shorto

Consuelo and Alva Vanderbilt: The Story of a Daughter and a Mother in the Gilded Age - Amanda MacKenzie Stuart

On Doing Time - Morton Sobell

Titan: The Life of John D. Rockefeller, Sr. - Ron Chernov

Lonesome Rangers: Homeless Minds, Promised Lands, and Fugitive Cultures - John Leonard

Bronx Primitive: Portraits in Childhood - Kate Simon

Beneath the Naked Sun Poetry by Connie Fife

Riding in Cars with Boys - Beverly Donofrio

Story and Structure - Laurence Perrine

Making a Literary Life: Advice for Writers and Other Dreamers - Carolyn See

Negotiating with the Dead: A Writer on Writing - Margaret Atwood

The Gangs of New York - Herbert Asbury

Writing New York: A Literary Anthology - edited by Philip Lopate

Reading Like a Writer: A Guide for People Who Love Books and For Those Who Want to Write Them - Francine Prose

The Fate of Elephants - Doug Chadwick

Stella Adler - The Art of Acting: preface by Marlon Brando compiled and edited by Howard Kissel (Applause Acting Series) (Hardcover)
by Howard Kissel, Stella Adler

The Road Past Altamont - Gabriel Roy

Writing Past Dark: Envy, Fear, Distractions, and Other Dilemmas in the Writer's Life - Bonnie Friedman

James Joyce - Edna O'Brien

The Kalahari Typing School for Men - Alexander McCall Smith

In the Company of Cheerful Ladies - Alexander McCall Smith

The Tears of the Giraffe - Alexander McCall Smith

The Innocent Man: Murder and Injustice in a Small Town - John Grisham (nonfiction)

Meena: Heroine of Afghanistan - Melody Ermachild Chavis

Fierce Attachments: A Memoir - Vivian Gornick
(re-read)

American Hollow - Rory Kennedy

The Tree - John Fowles (text) and Frank Horvat (photographs)
Continues my obsession with trees

New York, New York : The City in Art and Literature [Hardcover]
By: Metropolitan Museum Art

Lucky Eyes and a High Heart: The Life of Maud Gonne - Nancy Cardozo

Up in the Old Hotel - Joseph Mitchell

Eamon DeValera - Tim Pat Coogan

Charming Billy - Alice McDermott

Staying Connected to Your Teenager: How to Keep Them Talking to You and How to Hear What They're Really Saying - Michael Riera

Gods and Heroes of the Celts - Marie-Louise Sjoestedt

The Music Lesson - Katharine Weber

The Romance of American Communism - Vivian Gornick

Simple Living - Jose Hobday

Writing a Novel - Dorothy Bryant

The Art of the Novel - Milan Kundera

How to Write a Damn Good Novel - James Frey

The Echo Maker - Richard Powers

The Art of Fiction: Notes on Craft for Young Writers

Memoir of a Race Traitor - Mab Segrest

Ireland: A Social, Cultural, and Literary History 1791 - 1891 - James H. Murphy

A Leg to Stand On - Oliver Sachs

R is for Richochet - Sue Grafton

The Burglar on the Prowl - Lawrence Block

Little Scarlet - Walter Mosley

Cinnamon Kiss - Walter Mosley

Like Sound Through Water: A Mother's Journey Through Auditory Processing Disorder - Karen J. Foli

How the Irish Saved Civilization: The Untold Story of Ireland's Heroic Role from the Fall of Rome to the Rise of Medieval Europe - Thomas Cahill

The Botany of Desire - Michael Pollan

Purple Hibiscus - Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Your Money or Your Life: Transforming Your Relationship With Money and Achieving Financial Independence - Joe Dominguez and Vicki Robin

The Everything Guide to Writing a Novel - Joyce and Jim Lavene

Rereadings: Seventeen Writers Revisit Books They Love - edited by Anne Fadiman

A Book of Migrations: Some Passages in Ireland - Rebecca Solnit

The Healing - Gayle Jones [re-reading]

The Empress of Ireland: A Chronicle of an Unusual Friendship - Christopher Robbins

The Situation and the Story: The Art of Personal Narrative - Vivian Gornick

Juno and the Paycock - Sean O'Casey

Plough and Stars - Sean O'Casey

Ireland: A Novel - Frank Delaney

Catholic Girls: Stories, Poems, and Memoirs - Edited by Amber Coverdale Sumrall and Patrice Vecchione

All Will Be Well: A Memoir - John McGahern

Grace Notes - Bernard MacLaverty [re-read]

Lamb - Bernard MacLaverty

Cal - Bernard MacLaverty

Tales from Bective Bridge - Mary Lavin

The Beauty Queen of Leenane and Other Plays - Martin McDonagh

The Cripple of Inishmaan - Martin McDonagh

Triptych and Iphegenia: Two Plays - Edna O'Brien

Waterfront: A Journey Around Manhattan - Phillip Lopate

The Irish: A Treasury of Art and Literature - Edited by Leslie Conron Carola

The Illustrated History of New York - Ric Burns and James Sanders, with Lisa Ades

The Transformation of Ireland - Diarmaid Ferriter

The Story of the Irish Race - Seumas MacManus

Twice Over Lightly: New York Then and Now - Helen Hayes and Anita Loos

Crown of Empire: The Story of New York State - Paul Eldridge

The Epic of New York City: A Narrative History - Edward Robb Ellis

The Fifties - David Halberstam

Working Class New York - Joshua B. Freeman

The Illustrated History of Canada - edited by Craig Brown

Ireland: A Social and Cultural History 1922 - 2002 - Terence Brown

Wonderful Town: New York Stories from The New Yorker - edited by David Remnick

We Too Are Drifting - Gale Wilhelm

Boots of Leather, Slippers of Gold: The History of a Lesbian Community - Elizabeth Lapovsky Kennedy and Madeline D. Davis

Odd Girls and Twilight Lovers: A History of Lesbian Life in Twentieth Century America - Lillian Faderman

The New York Irish - Edited by Ronald H. Bayor and Timothy J. Meagher

The New Art City: Manhattan at Mid-Century - Jed Perl

The Princes of Ireland: The Dublin Saga - Edward Rutherford