The Kreativ Blogger Award

My apology to those of you who out of kindness and generosity gave me different blogger awards because I have been absent-minded in acknowledging the awards. Most recently Elena from With Extra Pulp has given A Guy’s Moleskine Notebook the Kreativ Award. To keep the wheels of karma going, I’m to list seven things I [...]

Funniest Book

What’s the funniest book you’ve read recently? My answer might touch upon some very sensitive racial issues. No hard feelings. It’s just very funny. I picked up Christian Lander’s Stuff White People Like: A Definitive Guide to the Unique Taste of Millions for a friend who always makes fun of his own kind but I [...]

[218] The Fortune Cookie Chronicles: Adventures in the World of Chinese Food – Jennifer 8. Lee

“Chinese food has become an American comfort food in part because it is so predictable.” [266] “Nearly everyone has a go-to Chinese restaurant.” [10] In spring 2005, while the lottery board launched an investigation on a possible fraud after dozens of people across America claimed the jackpot, Jennifer 8. Lee was on a mission to [...]

Could This Be It? Book Group

As well-read as San Francisco claims to be (it’s the, let’s have a roll of drum, third most bookish city in the United States after Washington DC and New York City in terms of book sales; Seattle has the most bookstores per capita), book groups are hard to come by, at least for me. I’ve [...]

You Know Who You Are: Fall Book List

Written on a yellow writing pad in my office are book titles that I quickly scribble down when I read your blogs. This morning I spilled a gulpful of coffee on the page that has long been dog-eared and curled up. These are the books to be acquired as soon as the State of California [...]

On a Chinese-American Streak: Restaurants

I always find it lovely when a book echoes previously read books. I started Jennifer 8. Lee’s The Fortune Cookie Chronicles, which details her mission to solve the mystery of how dozens of people across America had won a lottery after receiving the lucky numbers in their fortune cookies. But her journey led to an [...]

[217] Beijing: A Novel – Philip Gambone

“Do you know how many times in my life I’ve done just that? Go with my heart? It’s getting to be a cliché with me . . . Do you know how many times I’ve ended up feeling like a fool for going with my heart? I just don’t want to feel like a fool [...]

Another Pile of Books

In addition to the night-stand pile I mentioned in this post, I’ve got more books lined up well into the fall. Thanks to Frances from Nosuch Book who sent me some great Asian American titles. As a habit of mine that I have discussed in the previous post, I flag these books by insert a [...]

Quickie on Preferences

Which do you prefer? (Quick answers–we’ll do more detail at some later date) I prefer a plot-driven novel that slowly unfolds in fruity and lush prose, with multiple layers and allusion that indulge my mind long after I turn the last page like the lingering aftertaste of a good glass of wine. Reading something frivolous? [...]

[216] The Heat of the Day – Elizabeth Bowen

“. . . she had been the onlooker with nothing more to lose—out of feeling as one can be out of breath. She had had the sensation of being on furlough from her own life . . . This was the new society of one kind of wealth, resilience, living how it liked—people whom the [...]