Unread, Forgotten, Dusty

A coworker and I talked about books that were intriguing enough for us to buy in the first place but that somehow we never got to read. I’m sure many readers have books that are collecting dust on our shelves unread. But what happened to the books that had obviously lost the appeal? Forgotten, banished, and set aside, they are not even in the TBR pile.

1. The book everyone is reading or recommedning.
I sometimes succumb to the popular opinion and sheep syndrome. Even though I know better about my taste, I still buy books that everyone is reading or talking about. Well—not Fifty Shades of Grey although a girlfriend who has never toughed a book is reading it. I’m talking about those phenomenal bestsellers that Hollywood quickly bought off the copyright to make a movie out of them. Like A Kite Runner. The Life of Pi. These books largely remain unread.

2. The book is dirt cheap.
Ever felt left out if you can’t make it to the $1 book sale at the local charity or library sale? When books cost no more than pennies and nickels, I tended to be much less selective. The result is a stack of books that I felt half-hearted about. The bargain bin can be dangerous because you never realize how quickly that pile builds up.

3. The book is a giant, intimidating-looking tome.
One day, I will read Rand’s Atlas Shrugged, David Foster Wallace’s Infinite Jest, and Vikram Seth’s A Suitable Boy. But to give me the credit, I have survived The Fountainhead (which I loved), and this year American Tragedy and The Secret History. At this point I don’t even want to think anything by Proust! It’s such a commitment to tomes.

4. The book is a classic, meaning an obligation.
I don’t know why I still feel obliged to reading books that bored the hell out of me in school. Just because something is shelved under classics doesn’t mean I have to read it. I enjoyed The Great Gatsby, A Tale of Two Cities, and The Sound and the Fury but I shouldn’t read everything written by Fitzgerald, Dickens, and Faulkner? One day, I’ll get to Les Misérables. (See #3)

5. The book is written by an author whose other work(s) I like.
Sometimes buying the entire oeuvre is a big mistake. I should have left Umberto Eco alone after reading, cherishing, and loving The Name of the Rose. Most of his other novels I cannot even get through the first chapter. Focault’s Pendulum is flat out boring and pointless, a huge mess. Cloud Atlas is another one, and the film doesn’t help. David Mitchell is the kind of author whom you just have to read one and you read them all. Number 9 Dream is gathering dust.

Book Budget

If neither finance nor space a concern, I mentioned I would buy all the books I’ll ever read. Reality dictates otherwise. On the heels of recession, inflation has driven up the costs of living in all facets—from luxury down to bare necessity. I have noticed publishers have silently raised the price on new trade paperbacks by a dollar even the cover design has remained the same. Instead of releasing an updated edition, the publishers simply reprint but charge a higher cover price.

Although it’s not down to between bread, butter and books, I do have to watch what I buy. I’m not complaining the price increase because with the higher cost a price increase is inevitable. I do have been thinking how much I am willing to pay for a book—full price, at a percentage, or heavy discount. Hardbacks have long been out of the question because I just don’t want to pay $25. New trade paperbacks are listed anywhere between $13 to $17, with occasional tome-sized classics like Ulysses and The Fountainhead at $21. Used bookstores, depending on stock and demand, would sell these trade paperbacks for half price. Goodwill stores and library sales usually give you the best bargains but selections are hit-or-miss.

I’m willing to pay full price for new trade paperbacks from my favorite authors and for subject matter/genre that is endearing to me. I’m also happy to pay more for books that are recommended by bloggers who share common taste—books that stand a good chance I would like. Otherwise I just stock up at used bookstores and at library step sales, where everything goes for $1 each. I find the best value at Book Bay (operated by the Friends of the San Francisco Public Library at Main Library and Fort Mason), which offers books in very good condition for half the cover price. Selection at especially Fort Mason is comparable to any local bookstore. Nothing is ever $1, but the quality of the books are guaranteed. I feel justified spending my money that will benefit the public library. Read for a cause. The sale bin at Green Apple Books also hold many wonders for under $3.

How do you make the best of your book budget?

When Stupid Bookstore Patrons Use Google

This article is so funny. The reality is: when patrons don’t know the name of the author, let alone the title, even the mighty search engine of the online bookstore cannot help. I’m not saying browsers at the local bookstores are stupid (because I’m one myself). The truth is: those savvy folks (that means they are readers themselves, but not taking another job) behind information desk actually listen to all the crazy questions and requests and are still able to nail that book about the lady who baked some scones this morning on Today’s Show. A big toast to the indie bookstores. They exist for a very valid reason: to make the lives of readers better. Miss Swan (from MadTV) would be surprised she’s not alone on this one. “Madame, what does the book look like?” “Yeah, yeah, yeah, I will tell you evey-ting. It looks like a book.” “What kind of book?” “It’s blue…”

Haruki Murakami

I wasn’t aware there are published odds for Nobel Prize for literature. Then I saw this post by Goodreads on Facebook about voting for the author whom you want win the prize. Nobel Prize has a short-list? Nobel has been known to emphasize how a candidate’s oeuvre has contributed to the value of literature and humanity. I can’t help feeling that the committee’s criteria lean more toward political cause than literary merit. How many winners have you heard before they were rewarded the prize? Only Toni Morrison and Jose Saramago for me. Doris Lessing yes but I have never read her. When Xinjian Gao, who lives in France on exile, was awarded the prize, China was abuzz with discordant voices that many Chinese authors were just as qualified. This year’s race is interesting to watch. How the media came up with the candidates is beyond me. But Haruki Murakami, whom I have just read for the first time recently, is among the favored. There’s some tension in the air in Japan. No, nothing to do with China or the husk of a dead volcano protruding from the East China Sea—the country is on tenterhooks as its most celebrated living author is among the favorites to win the highest honor awarded in literature, against a Kenyan author and Cormac McCarthy.

Speaking of Murakami, he is (well, his work) is love at first sight. I thoroughly enjoy After Dark, and am getting into The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle after a disappointing Peter Carey book.

Cantonese Colloquial Expressions

I have been burying my nose in the pages of the Millennium Trilogy’s final installment, The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest. Despite the fact that the scale of violence has downplayed compared to the previous book, it’s nonetheless very intriguing. Mind games. My coffee companion frowned at me to show his cluelessness: Isn’t this book anything but funny? The subject matter isn’t, but one sentence is so hilarious that it reminds me of my native tongue:

I’ll beat you so hard that even your own mother won’t recognize you.

Even your own mother won’t recognize you. So right-on. So Cantonese. During my fledging days as an English language student, the absolute commandment imposed upon me was to never directly translate from Chinese to English. …even your mother won’t recognize you is a Cantonese idiom that I have never encountered in English-language literature. I do not think the expression is Chinglish, but being mindful of that commandment, I have seldom used this expression in English. It means something is beyond recognition.

Which reminds me another colloquial expression that involves one’s father. One talks so much that he forgets his father’s last name. It means someone is so rapt and concentrated in doing something. Looking around at the coffee shop, everyone is either texting and playing with their phones to the point that they have all forgotten their father’s last name!

Can you guess what these expressions mean? a) a fish without a soul; b) cat cries for mouse; c) have money to hire a ghost push the whittle; d) rid of the monk after the ceremony; e) chicken talking to duck; and my favorite, f) talk about Jesus.

Idiot

On the eve of the 9th anniversary of the September 11 attack, Reverend Terry Jones, who got his 15 minutes of fame, called off the burning of the Quran. It’s all but a scam. The story of how one lone idiot and cult leader held the media hostage and forced some of this nation’s most powerful people to their knees to fitfully beg an end to his wackdoodlery is an extraordinary one. Not only that this anti-Muslim propaganda is a fear-based campaign ruse, what shocks me the most is that the media is complicit in it. The reverend essentially has blackmailed some of the most important people in America, with the assistance of the media. All of this finally culminated with yesterday’s press conference—which is really shame on ABC and some of the New York City stations to even report on it, where Terry Jones lied and said that the Park51 community center was going to move, thanks to him. President Obama now has to announce that it’s wrong to burn Quran. The White House is embarrassed to be caught between two loyalties. The war against terrorism and the defense of religious freedom. Now the people behind Park51 are on the hook for stopping this Quran burning, and all of the negative external impact it may have. Maybe the reverend is a fan of William Faulkner. It’s a modern media retelling of Faulkner’s As I Lay Dying, in which a gang of Islamaphobes, cast in the role of Addie Bundren, bamboozle the media into carrying their coffin full of malevolence on a journey of pure debasement. Faulkner might be intimidating, but he’s certainly not outdated!

Chinatown

This is my debut post for a collaborative blog named 2 Weeks 1 Gather, featuring posts of Chinese bloggers from all over the world on a variety of subjects bimonthly. The current topic just hits home: Chinatown. Twenty three years ago, when I first set my feet on the land of America, I was 12. Unlike Li Cuexin in Mao’s Last Dancer, who was raised in poverty and overwhelmed by the excesses of Reagan-era Texas and America in general, I wasn’t even thrilled about coming to San Francisco. Chinatown, boasting to be the oldest and the largest outside of China, was the biggest culture shock to me. It reminds me nothing about China, at least not Hong Kong, except the claustrophobic alleys lined with vendors selling all kinds of goods. A walk through it feels like going back in time and being baffled by things like chop suey and fortune cookies that are created for the benefits for non-Chinese folks..

The language spoken in Chinatown (back then) was one obscure, askew-sounding Toisan tongue. It’s a variation of the Cantonese language that hails from the mountainous villages near the Pearl River Delta, west of Hong Kong. It took me over a year to find out the meaning of haam seen—calling the line—telephone! The Chinese culture that is on display in the form of colorful paper lanterns, trinkets, toys, linens and knock-off handbags is just a small reminder of home. Chinatown is packed: every inch of it is used to make a living. Food shops, restaurants, and trendy tapioca-tea houses are tucked between trinket shops and colorful apartment buildings. Street vendors of cheap accessories flank the sidewalk, gaining a share of the tourism economy. Local Asian families going about their daily routines dodge around camera-clutching tourists whose eyes bulge at the sights of lion dancers, who perform all year round.

My first impression of this caricature of China was not unlike that of most visitors: At points I was shocked, disgusted and thoroughly amazed. I was not prepared for the crowds, the smells, and the spits! From the fresh-food market festooned with freshly killed carcasses to the incense-burning paper money shops, commerce never rests. Bearing a closer picture to home are shops that specialize in only meat and poultry, proudly hanging shellacked roasted ducks from hooks in the front window. The dim sum portions are ridiculously huge, but lacking the delicacy and craftsmanship of that at home. Chinese folks would scream at each other in Toisan dialect that sounds like hammers hitting iron over bor lor bao at the small pastry shops, which are more pleasant and healthy to eat in since the city bans smoking in all restaurants. There’s always a place for quick noshing. The one appeal that kept drawing me back to Chinatown was the music shop, of course, before the age of mp3 downloads. It was a weekly routine to scour for the latest releases, from cassettes to CDs, until when pirated CDs took over the market.

I’ve always felt that Chinatown is resentful to changes. That it fails to keep up with the modernity becomes the backlash of its fall, as new Chinese malls open up in neighborhoods populated by young Chinese. In fact, the hole-in-the-wall joints are indicative harsh history and contemporary poverty. The neighborhood, which is run by the Chinese family associations, had spent two-thirds of its history living a double life as a crash pad for immigrants and a stage set for tourists—neither of which I can identify myself with. But at least this undeniably a home away from home. It soothes the occasional nostalgia.

Reader’s Privacy

I don’t like to delve into politics—I don’t know enough to write a post about politics. Nor am I going to talk about whether Jane Fonda is a traitor. But her autobiography, My Life So Far, which my friend is reading, broaches a subject that affects me more profoundly than I have conceived. Under the United States Patriot Act, information about your library account and usage can be obtained by Federal Agents using a court order. The act prohibits library staff from informing you if such an order or search has been undertaken by means of a gag order. The FBI can retrieve any information about you that the library has. Information from the library may include, but is not limited to, books and other materials you have checked out; searches you have done on library computers, including places you have visited on the Internet. How about that?

Which brings me to the issue of reader privacy. E-readers possess the ability to report back substantial information about their users’ reading habits and locations to the corporations that sell them. That means FBI can exercise the same right authorized by Patriot Act to access personal information from Amazon and Apple. And yet none of the major e-reader manufacturers have explained to consumers in clear unequivocal language what data is being collected about them and why. Google’s new Google Book Search Project has the ability to track reading habits at an unprecedented level of granularity. In particular, according to the proposed Google Books Privacy Policy, web servers will automatically “log” each book and page you searched for and read, how long you viewed it for, and what book or page you continued onto next

A careful examination of my Kindle license and agreement terms reveals that the device software will provide Amazon with data about your Device and its interaction with the Service [i.e. the wireless connection, purchases through the Kindle Store, etc.] (such as available memory, up-time, log files and signal strength) and information related to the content on your device and your use of it.

Now it makes me wonder if FBI has access to the blogs and websites we read—in other words, web browser history? Does it have access to our credit card bills to see what kind of books we have purchased? Does the x-ray machine at security line has a software that keeps track of the reading materials we bring with us on vacation?

Giving Up and Chick Lit

This week BTT asks:

If you’re not enjoying a book, will you stop mid-way? Or do you push through to the end? What makes you decide to stop?

This topic has been done to death, over and over again, being recycled every month or so between Booking Through Thursday and Musing Mondays. Depending on the size of the book, I read either 50 pages or half way before I give up. Sometimes I totally don’t appreciate the writing style, for example, narrative is bogged down with too much descriptions and digressions, but if I resonate with the story, I would push through to the end, skimming. Recently I begin skimming at first couple chapters of books I want to take on, and move on to the one that I really enjoy. This practice helps avoid picking the wrong book that leaves me in a state of boredom halfway.

Since this week’s question ruminates on beaten tracks, I want to bring to your attention an NPR titled Women Are Not Marshmallow Peeps, And Other Reasons There’s No ‘Chick Lit’. The author of the essay, Linda Holmes,  calls for permanent removal, abolition of the term chick lit because “it’s become a term that means by and about women, and not something you need to take seriously, although we’re not necessarily saying those things are connected, so it might be a giant coincidence. “The term, she says, increasingly makes her feel like she is “being compared to a marshmallow peep just for reading books by and about women.”

Holmes sounds like as if chick lit is a derogatory term coined to make less of women and who they are. Well, the truth is, whether Holmes likes it or not, chick lit has become a very popular subgenre veered off from fiction. My local indies have sections designated for chick lit. While traditional romance just goes straight to the sex, chick lit has evolved to adopt glamor and social reality. Some of the chick lit books might be silly, unreal, or unbelievable, there are titles that are actually well-written and most importantly, reflects identity of independent, working women.

On the other hand, books with stilettos, panty hose, a woman’s leg on the cover continue to flood the market. How can anyone deny the existence of chick lit? What do you call a story with a white girl in the big city searching for Prince Charming, all the while shopping, alternately cheating on or  adhering to her diet, dodging her boss, and enjoying the occasional tear-eyed gathering with her token Sassy Gay Friend over sushi dinner?

Off the Top of My Head: Reading Meme

This week’s Booking Through Thursday is a meme questionnaire: perfect for a lazy, dreamy, pillowy morning during vacation. 87 degrees out and humid in Oahu. The sun is just passing over my patch of the outdoor lounge where I have brunch on the Waikiki.

1. Favorite childhood book?
The Cat in the Hat by Dr. Seuss made the deepest impression in me.

2. What are you reading right now?
I just mentioned the books yesterday: The Angel’s Game by Carlos Ruiz Zafon and Learning to Lose by Michael Trueba. Both translated from Spanish. The latter is getting all my attention now. On the Kindle 3G+Wifi is An Instance of the Fingerpost by Iain Pears.

3. What books do you have on request at the library?
None at the moment.

4. Bad book habit?
As some readers have reproached me before, I used to write in my books, making notes on the margin. I have since corrected that habit by keeping notes in post-it slips.

5. What do you currently have checked out at the library?
I returned all the library books so I don’t have to worry about deadlines while I’m on vacation.

6. Do you have an e-reader?
Is this meme tailored for me since I seem to have all the answers. I posted about my brand new Kindle 3G + Wifi about three weeks ago. I finally drank the coolaid because this eReader has everything that I’ve ever wanted in a gadget: to read books and to get on the internet with wifi.

7. Do you prefer to read one book at a time, or several at once?
I usually have a few books around on the night-stand but I focus mainly on one book. Now that I’m on vacation, I want to have more choices in case I’m one too keen on one book.

8. Have your reading habits changed since starting a blog?
Big time. While I still enjoy browsing the bookstores, I have come to rely on bloggers’ book recommendation, in addition to following my literary instincts. I have also read outside of my usual genre.

9. Least favorite book you read this year (so far?)
Eden Springs by Laura Kasischke.

10. Favorite book you’ve read this year?
For classic: East of Eden by John Steinbeck. For new book: The Palisades by Tom Schabarum. For translated literature: Learning to Lose by David Trueba.

11. How often do you read out of your comfort zone?
Lately I have reading out of my comfort zone quite a bit, especially after I have taken up with Steig Larsson’s trilogy. Thrillers and mysteries become a new territory to explore when I need a break from literary fiction.

12. What is your reading comfort zone?
Literary fiction, literature, and classic.

13. Can you read on the bus?
I formed the habit of reading on school bus when I started first grade. Poring over materials that I had no time to study for incessant tests, quizzes, and dictations.

14. Favorite place to read?
I’m extremely fastidious with where I read. A perfect reading place has to be cozy, well-lighted, reasonably quiet, and serving coffee. I’ve been reading at the same place, a coffee shop, in the morning over 5 years.

15. What is your policy on book lending?
I rarely loan out books except for the few special people with whom I share common literary interest. I worry too much that books returned to me in a worse condition. I don’t want to ruin a friendship over a book.

16. Do you ever dog-ear books?
I rather write in my books than to dog-ear them.

17. Do you ever write in the margins of your books?
Question 4 asks about my bad book habit. I used to write all over my books: on the margins, at the top, at the bottom. Underline key passages. Double-underline favorite quotes. I have graduated from marking my books by taking notes on post-it slips.

18. Not even with text books?
Condition of my textbooks is a perfect testimony of my academic achievement in college.

19. What is your favorite language to read in?
I prefer to read in English although I can speak English, Cantonese, Mandarin and Japanese. I’ve always read books in English language since I became an avid reader.

20. What makes you love a book?
A sustainable plot, believable and etched characters, a thoughtful and assertive writing style. Books that appeal to me the most are ones that are reflective of my life.

21. What will inspire you to recommend a book?
Same as Question 20.

22. Favorite genre?
Same as my reading comfort zone: Literary fiction, literature, and classic.

23. Genre you rarely read (but wish you did?)
Mystery, thriller, non-fiction (history, philosophy).

24. Favorite biography?
I rarely read biography, but The Secret Lives of Somerset Maugham by Selina Hastings tops my reading list this year.

25. Have you ever read a self-help book?
Does Chicken Soups series count?

26. Favorite cookbook?
Barefoot Contessa Back to Basics Cookbook by Ina Garten

27. Most inspirational book you’ve read this year (fiction or non-fiction)?
The Palisades by Tom Schabarum

28. Favorite reading snack?
Those chocolate-coated nibbly things.

29. Name a case in which hype ruined your reading experience.
Let the Great World Spin by Colum McCann. I still don’t understand what’s so great about this book. It’s good but not great.

30. How often do you agree with critics about a book?
Since I started blogging I have hardly agreed with the critics. I avoid books that are all over critics’ radar.

31. How do you feel about giving bad/negative reviews?
I have no scruple giving negative reviews as long as I am justified to do so.

32. If you could read in a foreign language, which language would you chose?
Spanish.

33. Most intimidating book you’ve ever read?
Ulysses by James Joyce.

34. Most intimidating book you’re too nervous to begin?
A Suitable Boy by Vikram Seth.

35. Favorite Poet?
Walt Whitman.

36. How many books do you usually have checked out of the library at any given time?
Usually 2 or 3.

37. How often have you returned book to the library unread?
Maybe a third of the time. 1 out of 3 books.

38. Favorite fictional character?
The faithful and witty Chinese servant Lee in East of Eden.

39. Favorite fictional villain?
I’m drawing a blank here.

40. Books I’m most likely to bring on vacation?
Usually mysteries, thrillers, and literature that is plot-driven.

41. The longest I’ve gone without reading.
One day.

42. Name a book that you could/would not finish.
The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy.

43. What distracts you easily when you’re reading?
People carrying on a conversation or talking on the phone.

44. Favorite film adaptation of a novel?
Ang Lee’s Lust, Caution.

45. Most disappointing film adaptation?
Aren’t most of them dreadful?

46. The most money I’ve ever spent in the bookstore at one time?
Around 200 dollars.

47. How often do you skim a book before reading it?
Every time when I’m trying to decide what to read next. I spend a few minutes skimming through the first two chapters of what sit on the night-stand.

48. What would cause you to stop reading a book half-way through?
A story that promises to happen but is not happening.

49. Do you like to keep your books organized?
Alphabetically ordered by author’s last name.

50. Do you prefer to keep books or give them away once you’ve read them?
I keep the ones I like and dispose of the others.

51. Are there any books you’ve been avoiding?
I avoid the romance, chick-lit, sci-fi, and gay erotica. I used to say that I don’t care for bestsellers but after Stieg Larsson (which I do enjoy tremendously) it really depends on the book itself. Maybe I should at least skim through The Life of Pi and The Kite Runner at the bookstore.

52. Name a book that made you angry.
Perfume by Patrick Suskind.

53. A book you didn’t expect to like but did?
Mudbound by Hillary Jordan.

54. A book that you expected to like but didn’t?
Let the Great World Spin by Colum McCann. The hype has overkilled it.

55. Favorite guilt-free, pleasure reading?
The Girl Who Played with Fire by Stieg Larsson.