Library Challenge Complete!

Back last May, I joined J. Kaye's Support Your Local Library Challenge. After several months of library looting, I began last weekend to tally up what I had checked out and read from my library so I could see how much of a push I needed to finish To my surprise, the total was at 24, and I had pledged to read 25 library books in 2009.

Today, I completed this challenge. I'm offering up my sweet success as a tribute to the library I waited and longed for during my first four years in Korea. Although I won't have any classes in the building next semester, my library is only a 3-5 minute walk uphill and I'll be making fond and frequent visits. My library. I'll never get tired of saying it.

Perhaps even more than the reading, I've had fun scanning the shelves and shelves of books in Korean and picking out what's available in English. Every visit has been a treasure hunt. Odd and enjoyable. Check out what I checked out:

1. The Hidden Flower - Pearl S. Buck

2. In Dubious Battle -John Steinbeck

3. Lost Names - Richard Kim

4. The Scarlet Letter - Nathaniel Hawthorne

5. The Snows of Kilimanjaro - Ernest Hemingway

6. The Moon and Sixpence - W. Somerset Maugham

7. Howards End - E.M. Forester

8. Native Son - Richard Wright

9. The Just and the Unjust - James Gould Cozzens

10. Yang The Youngest and His Terrible Ear - Lensey Namioka

11. Fox Girl - Nora Okja Keller

12. A Step From Heaven - An Na

13. Little Women and the Feminist Imagination

14. The Classic Era of Crime Fiction

15. Carver Country

16. The Benchley Roundup - Robert Benchley

17. Jane Eyre's American Daughters

18. Shaking The Nickel Bush - Ralph Moody

19. The Underground Stream: The Life & Art of Caroline Gordon

20. A Moveable Feast - Ernest Hemingway

21. Make-Believe: The Story of Nancy & Ronald Reagan

22. Daydreams and Nightmares: Reflections On A Harlem Childhood

23. Huey Long: The Kingfish of Louisiana

24. Reading In The Dark: Using Film as a Tool in the English Classroom

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25. Discovering The Maltese Falcon And Sam Spade - Richard Layman (ed.)

Library Loot: Lootless And Disgraced For One Day

Believe it or not, I got suspended from using my library for one whole day. Punishment for being one day late with the Huey Long biography. I couldn't believe it -- the self-checkout machine, who is usually so sweet and tender and speaks to me in such dulcet computerized tones didn't speak to me at all! When I scanned my card, it flashed an angry red rectangular light twice and a terse message came up: Card suspended. You cannot check out here. I didn't say anything. Pouting, I put the book back on the shelf and slunk away, lootless and in disgrace.

Coming back the next day after class, I decided that if I was still on their blacklist, I'd try to sort things out with the library staff, even though they send out oh-foreigner-please-don't-ask-me-anything vibes when I get within 20 feet of the desk. I'm sure they wish they could take the self-checkout machine out for a drink once a week for saving their bacon.

Anyway, surprise! I didn't have to engage the staff; I was back to good. Upon reflection, I've decided that I was wrong to pout, even for a moment. A month is a reasonable amount of time to read a book, especially a YA biography. I've resolved to clean up my slightly dingy act and keep track of my return dates.

Here's the book that I (slightly sweaty with relief) went home with:

Discovering The Maltese Falcon And Sam Spade, edited by Richard Layman. It's everything you ever wanted to know about Dashiell Hammett and his masterpiece.

Wishlist Wednesday: In A Biographical Frame of Mind

Allofasudden, I have an urge to read three particular biographies.

It all began two nights ago when I went to Becka's for "Mad Men Monday". This week was the season finale. As the episode ended, Roy Orbison was singing Shahdaroba. (Great choice. I would've been more predictable and chosen It's Over.) The song stuck in my head and now I feel like reading Dark Star, the biography about Orbison.

The next evening, I came home and found Time magazine in my mailbox. I haven't read it all yet, but I noticed in the book reviews that a new biography about W. Somerset Maugham has just been published. It looks and sounds wonderful. Maybe I'll run across it soon at What The Book? or Kyobo. Maugham has stayed consistently popular in Asia, probably because many of his novels are set here.

Today, I came in to the office and saw that one of my colleagues has books piled up all around his cubicle as if he's rethinking what he's going to keep and throw out. A 1987 biography of Ernest Hemingway snagged my eye and I promptly put a sticky note on the book asking if I could borrow it. The bio is delightfully long, a veritable doorstop of a book with lots of great photos with detailed and intelligent captions.

This week, I finished a biography of Huey Long that was written for the YA audience but older readers will appreciate the author's lucid explanations of the political and economic history and climate that fostered Long's rise to power. During a couple of long subway rides on Sunday, I finished Fox Girl by Nora Okja Keller which was gritty and captivating. Now I'm reading One Step From Heaven by An Na, which is a novel about the Korean immigrant experience.

You'll notice I haven't mentioned NaNoWriMo. Shudder. I'm only at 6,350 words. The "No" in NaNoWriMo seems to have taken on a completely different meaning.

NaNoWriMo?

I'm working on my 91st book of the year. My goal of 101 is doable. Then what do I do? I sign up to participate in NaNoWriMo! Why? Oh, because 3 of the Cracked Spinz are participating. Things are looking a little bleak, though. It's almost noon on November 5 and I've only written a little over 3200 words. Part of the problem is that I can't seem to turn off The Editor Inside Me:

Me: Type, type, type, type, type....
TEIM: Ooooh, that sucks.
Me: Piss off. Type, type, type, type...
TEIM: Cliche. I may vomit.
Me: I have to get it all out. Then you can take over. Type, type, type, type...
TEIM: Can't believe you're doing that. It's been done a million times. You are going down a bad road here, don't you know that? Danielle Steel...
Me: I know what I'm doing. On December 1, you can tweak it to your heart's content. Type, type type...
TEIM: You've got to get some symmetry going on. But don't get all contrived.
Me: I'm just trying to get from sentence to sentence. This is one big unwashed mofo with smelly pits. Type, type, type, type, type...
TEIM: Your main characters don't even have names. How can you know them if they don't have names? Let's see, what can you call them? Nothing too ordinary. And nothing weird. It screws up my optical cruise control when novelists try to be all clever and think of...
Me: WOULD YOU SHUT THE HELL UP!?

Larry McMurtry observed in his recent memoir Books that teaching and novel-writing seem to use the same set of muscles, so that's another problem I have. I sit down at the computer, dip into the well of creativity and start coming up with lesson plans, activities and quizzes. Which creates more grading for myself. Which dips into novel-writing time.

I also miss my book blog life. I'm a reader and a blogger. There's just not enough time for everything. Oh well, it's only for this month. I enjoy a challenge, and I've been increasingly picky about what I like and don't like in novels. Maybe I need a dose of humility. Also, the camaraderie with the guys is fun. I just don't want to be away from here for too long.

Lovesong Of The Library Loot

It would have been the perfect semester -- for a couple of weeks in September on Mondays and Tuesdays, I was in building "H" which is also home to the campus bakery. What a great way to start the week -- walking in the building and being overcome by that lovely smell, that bread perfume that comes wafting up from that first floor room where culinary alchemy is performed almost hourly. Then, on Thursdays and Fridays -- the library and my beloved 800s and 900s and the amiable self-checkout machine just one floor below my classroom. Life doesn't get much better than that.

Sadly, I lost the bakery building early on. It was too far from the building where I teach the hour before, so the office made up a new classroom schedule. Goodbye, bakery building, I hardly knew ye. But if I had to give up a building, it was easier to give up bakery smells than the book dust smell of my library.

Although I inhaled with great appreciation today, I left with only one book: Reading In The Dark: Using Film As A Tool In The English Classroom by John Golden. I love reading. I love movies. I love reading about movies, and I love all of that slapped onto a sesame seed pedagogical bun. Skimming through this book, I'm enjoying the movies and stories that Golden has picked out to discuss, and I plan to adapt his prediction/reaction charts for my own classes.

Thanks again, library.

I love you.

Smell ya later.

Readathon Wrap-Up

1. Which hour was most daunting for you? In the 8th hour, I was overpowered by that effing jerk, Mr. Sandman. "Bring me a dream." Yeah, right. My ass. The creep held me hostage for 4 hours. I finally got away from him. He pulled some crap again in Hour 19, but I was too strong for him.

2. Could you list some high-interest books that you think could keep a reader engaged? Three words: Linda Sue Park. She's my author-crush of the moment. Yes, she's YA, but don't turn up your nose. Readers of all ages could learn a lot about Korean culture and get good stories in the bargain.

3. Suggestions to improve the Readathon? This is unreasonable, but I'll try anyway: Could we do a 'thon one time in which other continents (like Asia, for example) get a good night's sleep and start in the morning and North America starts at night? Okay, I'll stop whining now.

4. What do you think worked well in the Readathon? The cheerleaders were well-organized.

5. How many books did you read? 3 and 55.3% of a fourth one.

6. What were they?
When My Name Was Keoko - Linda Sue Park
Yang The Youngest and His Terrible Ear - Lensey Namioka
Persepolis 2 - Marjane Satrapi
Julie and Julia: My Year of Cooking Dangerously - Julie Powell

7. Which book did you enjoy the most? Park's my crush, but Satrapi is mesmerizing. I was pleased to discover Namioka's book is part of a series about the Yang family.

8. Which book did you enjoy the least? I lovehate and hatelove Julie and Julia. Her style irritates me, but not so much that I can stop reading. I'm 68% of the way through it now and I'm dying to see the movie, sad to say.

9. If you were a cheerleader, what advice do you have? Try to read people's blogs and leave a personal comment. Or, find a gimmick like Softdrink did with her parodies of songs. I'm still LOL at her rewrite of "Let's Do The Time Warp Again". And, as always, pep talk is wonderful.

10. How likely are you to participate in the Readathon again? 94% likely. October to April is a difficult time for me because there's no Readathons or major league baseball. By the time winter's over, I'm so very ready for both.

Readathon: Hour 24 Gone Baby Gone

Pages read: 17
Blogs visited: 0
Snacks: a handful of sunflower seeds and the last swallow of Coke in a 500 ml bottle

Grand totals: (which really aren't that grand, but oh well...)
Books read: 3, and slightly over 55% of a fourth one
Pages read: 677
Hours slept: 4 hours and 10 minutes
Regrets: Should've eaten the other half of that Twirl bar

See you in April and we'll go back, Jack, do it again.

Readathon: Hour 23

Pages read: 30
Blogs visited: 2
Snacks: 10 Zek crackers (almost the same as Ritz crackers)

I'm really trying like hell to block out the chick-lit side of Julie and Julia, but it's getting progressively harder as the clock hands scrape their way around in those last minutes before the Readathon ends.
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Julie's about to have an encounter with lobsters, so I'll read a few more pages then tally up my page and book totals in a final post.

Readathon: Hour 22

Pages read: 25
Blogs visited: 3
Snacks: bottled water and a handful of sunflower seeds

In spite of her annoying tendencies, I do like Julie Powell. She's plucky regarding her cooking project, but she's willing to admit when she can't go the distance with Julia's directions. I also like her salty sense of humor. Her blog audience is starting to become more and more vocal. They dug their heels in when Powell attempted Poached Eggs in Aspic -- it's like gelatin made from calves' feet. There were 9 aspic recipes in all in Julia Child's cookbook, and her readers actually begged her not to try the others. Bon Appetit. Not.
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I'll have to read My Life In France to find out exactly how and where Julia Child found the recipes that went into her masterwork. Poached Eggs In Aspic definitely has a medieval feel to it.

Readathon: Hour 21

Pages read: 13
Blogs visited: 8
Snack: a 2-inch square of Hershey's Chocolate with Almonds

Julie Powell has shifted away from her friends and family and started discussing Samuel Pepys, whose diary I mean to read one day. She's speculating how his diary might have been different if he'd been a blogger. Meanwhile, she's writing about a couple of dinner parties that she gave using Julia Child's recipes, and detailing them in her jumbly fashion.

Readathon: Hour 20

Pages Read: 11
Blogs visited: Oh shit, I forgot to keep count!
Snack: A highly-seasoned wurst dipped in mustard

Still reading Julie and Julia. I've settled into Julie Powell's writing style, but things still irritate me. This particular chapter starts with Julie sitting with a broken foot, swollen and discolored, but I've been reading for two pages now and I still have no idea how she broke it. Nope, we're off on a tangent about her commitment-phobe best friend from college. The mini-chapters in 1944 Ceylon with Paul Child and Julie McWilliams (who will one day become Julia Child) are so neat and tidy and leave the reader wanting more. Whimper.

Readathon: Hour 19

Pages read: 20
Blogs visited: 0
Snacks: finished off the aforementioned glass of Coke with lots of chipped ice

I read a few pages of Julie and Julia. That book is just all over the place. She can write and she can do funny, but there's too much of everything about her life. She needed an editor with wit and style to pare down her prose.

Close call -- I put the book over my face for a moment to think about how Maxwell Perkins might edit it. Suddenly, I heard this horrible sound like a 120-year-old woman with respiratory distress. It was me, snoring. It seemed like a good time to get up and visit the computer.