Book 85: Wherever You Go, There You Are

Squeaking in under the wire before midnight on December 31 . . . .



I loved this book. I think I need to re-read it periodically, and I almost never re-read books. It's full of incisive insights about mindfulness that cut right to the heart of what we are doing in our lives. Kabat-Zinn also describes some practices that can help us develop mindfulness.

And that's a wrap for 2012! On to 2013!

Book 84: The Hobbit

I'd never read this before, and decided I ought to, since I do like the LOTR trilogy.



The audio performance was really well done. It was read by Rob Inglis, and he did all the voices and sang all the songs. I admit that when I read the LOTR trilogy, I skipped the songs. Doesn't everyone? But listening to them in The Hobbit was great fun. I found myself singing one of the the elf songs a bit around the house.

Book 83: Journeys on the Silk Road

I had read a book about the Silk Road earlier this year (China Road), so when I heard about this book, I wanted to read it.



This book focuses on Aurel Stein and the scrolls and other items he bought from the Mogao caves in Dunhuang, China. The most famous and remarkable of his finds was the Diamond Sutra, a woodblock print book printed in 868.

Stein himself was a remarkable person with a lot of admirable attributes; I can only hope to be as energetic as he was to the very end of his life. The question of whether China's treasures should have been removed from China and taken to England and India is complicated. The good news is that you can view the Diamond Sutra and many of the other scrolls online, and you'll get a better view that way than you would through a glass case in a museum: http://www.bl.uk/collections/treasures/sutra/sutra_broadband.htm?middle

Book 82: What the Dog Saw

I love Malcolm Gladwell. He could write about chicken poop and make it sound fascinating. Who else could write an article about ketchup, for crying out loud, that would make me want to tell everyone I knew about it?



My favorite chapters were one about the birth control pill and another about job interviews. Oh, and of course, the one about ketchup. I now know more about ketchup than I ever thought possible.

2013's 5/5 Challenge

I'm starting to think about what 2013 will bring with my reading. I am not sure I will reach 52 books because I'm starting a new job in January, but I think I can still enjoy some good reading.

One challenge I'm taking on is called the 5/5 challenge: to read five works in each of five different genres or categories that I might not ordinarily read, or read that much of. Here are my categories:

1. Classics. I only finished four classics in 2012!
2. Dramas. I don't think I've read a play since English 382: Shakespeare. And that was last century. 
3. Religious or inspirational books. I don't read that many of these, aside from the Standard Works.
4. Memoirs/Biographies/Autobiographies. I haven't read too many of these, and I really should read more.
5. "Best Books" or Bestsellers, such as those from the ALA list, or the New York Times.

All the gaps will be filled in with whatever else comes up along the way.

It makes me a bit nervous to constrain my reading this way, but hopefully it will be enriching and enjoyable.

Book 81: Banker to the Poor

After reading Behind the Beautiful Forevers and Bright Lights, No City, I wanted to read a bit more about poverty alleviation, specifically through microfinancing.



I figured I should start my reading essentially at the beginning of microfinancing with Muhammad Yunus and Grameen, his Bangladesh-based bank that began with a loan of $27 to a group of poor villagers. This is a great book, and full of hope. I got up from reading it one night after midnight and participated in another loan through Kiva, a worldwide microfinancing/social media organization.

Book 80: Back When We Were Grownups

Ho hum.



That's about how I felt about this. I've read other books by Anne Tyler and enjoyed them, and this one was ok, but it just didn't grab me. I felt like the ending was kind of unresolved, too: not that I wanted it tied up neatly happily-ever-after style, but I wasn't convinced by the ending at all.

Book 79: Behind the Beautiful Forevers

You know those books that are at once both incredibly good and terribly discouraging?



This is one of those. It's a nonfiction account of life in a slum in Mumbai. The people there show ingenuity to feed, clothe, and house themselves. But the corruption in institutions in India and among the non-profit foundations supposedly helping slum dwellers and orphans is so depressing.

Book 78: The Year of Learning Dangerously

I heard Quinn Cummings interviewed on NPR earlier this year and read a few reviews of the book. I'm also interested in homeschooling my delicate geniuses, so the subject matter caught my attention.




I enjoyed Ms. Cummings' discussions of how homeschooling worked for her and her daughter. The chapters in which she visited other types of homeschoolers (usually the most extreme types around) and their events were sometimes interesting, but never very in-depth and often kind of caricatured.

Book 77: Bright Lights, No City

This book was an unexpected gem. I picked it up because it's about Whit Alexander, the creator of the game Cranium, and I love Cranium. Strange reason to read the book, huh?




After selling Cranium, Whit started a business called Burro in Ghana, renting rechargeable batteries to people who have no or very limited access to electricity on the grid. Whit's business is based on, and the book discusses in some detail, the idea of creative capitalism. Bill Gates spoke about it at Davos in 2008, when he said,

In a system of capitalism, as people's wealth rises, the financial incentive to serve them rises. As their wealth falls, the financial incentive to serve them falls, until it becomes zero. We have to find a way to make the aspects of capitalism that serve wealthier people serve poorer people as well.

The book is full of intriguing ideas about international aid and doing business in a developing nation. And it's just a fun story to read, too.

Book 76: Musicophilia

This is your brain.


This is your brain on music.



I actually had wanted to read Oliver Sacks' new book, Hallucinations, but it wasn't available, so I listened to this one, instead. It started out a little slow, but ultimately, I found it fascinating.



Sacks gives case studies about music and every kind of brain imaginable: the autistic brain, the amnesic brain, the depressed brain, the Alzheimer's brain, the Tourette's brain, the Parkinsonian brain, and so on.

Book 75: Call the Midwife

I've been watching the PBS series of the same name and enjoying it immensely, so when I realized Jennifer Worth had actually written and published her memoir upon which the series is based, I immediately requested it from the library.




Jennifer Worth was a midwife and nurse in the 1950s in the East End of London in the 1950s. In the preface, Jennifer mentions an article in Midwives Journal which said that midwives almost never appear in literature. Nurses and doctors appear, but midwives are invisible. Jennifer took this as a challenge and began writing.

What I liked best about the book is the way it shows all kinds of people in such an empathic light, even if Jenny finds them or their situations repulsive at first. As she learns more about certain characters she encounters, she unfailingly sees the good in them, and why they might behave in the ways they do.

Book 74: Life and Death are Wearing Me Out

Mo Yan won the Nobel Prize for Literature this year, and is the first Nobel Prize-winning author to live and write in China. (A previous Chinese winner is a dissident living in France.) I knew I had to read some of his work.



This was funny, eye-opening, and occasionally disturbing, and overall a great read. It was written in a magical or hallucinatory realism style, so it was often pretty entertaining, and very strange.

While Mo Yan is not a dissident, his work does express a lot of social criticism, and some of his writing has been banned in China.

Book 73: The Nine

I got on a bit of a Supreme Court kick after reading the Sandra Day O'Connor book, and this actually fit the bill as a tell-all, insider's look.



I found myself wondering how Jeffrey Toobin knew that such-and-such justice wrote a handwritten note to a colleague, and knew its text. But wherever the information came from, it was fascinating. The book follows the decisions and composition of the court through the time that I was conscious of the SCOTUS: the nineties to 2007. I only regret that it stopped at 2007, because I would have loved to hear any insider information about Citizens United or the Affordable Care Act.

Book 72: Cloud Atlas

I initially started reading this, thinking we might go to the theater and watch the movie. Now I don't think we'll be seeing it--a bit too much dystopia for me to watch on screen.



I did really enjoy it, though it's not the type of book I would ordinarily read. I thought the construction of the stories was great.

Book 71: Easy to Love, Difficult to Discipline

At first, this book seemed a little too goofy, new-age-y even for me! I was a little turned off by her use of seven of this and seven of that.

But I persevered and it got a lot better. There are aspects of it that are also helpful for my own sanity. I imagine it will take a lot of practice to implement, since the old habits of parenting with fear and compulsion are, sadly, very ingrained.

Book 70: The Sharper Your Knife, The Less You Cry

I was actually looking for a different book by the same author when I came across this one, and I was initially skeptical. It seemed like another one of those "I did this for a year and then wrote a book about it" books. I decided to give it a try anyway, since I didn't have another audio book waiting in the wings.



I was pleasantly surprised. This was a delightful book.

The author enrolled in Le Cordon Bleu cooking school in Paris and completed all three levels of cuisine. This is so far beyond my kind of cooking that it might as well be rocket surgery, but I had several epiphanies about my own cooking while listening.

There were some interesting and insightful life lessons learned along the way. I still want to read her other book, The Kitchen Counter Cooking School, which may really help me improve my cooking.

Book 69: The Last Lecture

I had this on my list to read for January, but just got to it this month.



Sadly, I didn't like it as much as I had hoped. There were some inspiring ideas that I took away, but I think my expectations were too high from all that I had heard about it.

Book 68: The Majesty of the Law

It wasn't as majestic as I was hoping. Or maybe the truth is, it was more majestic than I was hoping.



Really, it's my own fault. I had a moment of insanity, thinking the SCOTUS is like the set of some reality TV show whose intrigue is documented in the tabloids. And that Sandra Day O'Connor was going to write all that juicy stuff for me to lap up.

Somewhere around chapter 23, I was brought back to reality. Nope, the whole book was going to be about habeas corpus and Miranda rights and Oliver Wendell Holmes. The book was fine--nay, it was even very educational--but not what I was hoping for.

Book 67: Free-Range Knitter

This was a nice, light read that I really enjoyed. When I'm not mothering or reading (and sometimes when I am), I'm probably knitting something.



These are funny and touching stories about knitting and life. There were some about knitting and kids that I really liked, but also a story about knitting and the very old.

Book 66: Packing for Mars

I heard an interview with Mary Roach on NPR about this book and put it on my To Be Read list.



It was fantastic. I laughed through most of it and was amazed by the rest. I felt sort of guilty for having such a great time with a "science" book. If it's not hopelessly dry, it can't be educational, right?

Book 65: Picnic at Hanging Rock

An Australian online acquaintance suggested reading this, so I decided to give it a try.



This was a book I would not likely have chosen on my own, but enjoyed. The ending was ambiguous, but I think it was better that way; having thought about it, I don't think I would have wanted a resolution to the "mystery".

Book 64: 1491

Having read 1493, naturally, I needed to read 1491.



Charles C. Mann explains that almost everything you were taught in school about Native American culture before European colonists arrived is probably wrong. It was very interesting, with a lot of detail about archeology and the historical records of the first Europeans to see the Americas.

Book 63: China Road: A Journey into the Future of a Rising Power

It was years ago--probably 2004--that I heard a little piece on NPR about the trip recounted in this book. Rob Gifford was China correspondent for NPR for six years, so he recorded some audio pieces during the time of his trip on route 312. The one I remember is from a Christian home church in which he was called upon to preach and lead the singing when the minister was unable to be there.

It is impossible to be neutral about China. Some foreigners hate it from the first moment they arrive, and some love it so much that they put down roots and never leave.

 I fall closer to the second category; I loved China so much and almost took a semi-permanent job in Shanghai, teaching English to software engineers who wore yellow lab coats. But instead, I came home and married a software engineer who wears goofy tee shirts. I think I made the right choice, but maybe my software engineer and I will go back to Shanghai for a little sabbatical.

I listened to this as an audio book, and the only regret I have is that it wasn't Rob Gifford himself reading it.

Book 62: What I Talk about When I Talk about Running

I checked this one out on a whim, waiting for a few other audio books to become available. I didn't really even know what it was about. I was pleasantly surprised. It's the musings of an author about writing, life, and running--and I happen to be interested in all three of those!



Here's one of my favorite parts:

As I said, if I don't do anything, I tend to put on the pounds. . . . "Life just isn't fair," is how it used to strike me. Some people can work their butts off and never get what they're aiming for, while others can get it without any effort at all. But when I think about it, having the kind of body that easily puts on weight was perhaps a kind of blessing in disguise. In other words, if I don't want to gain weight, I have to work out hard every day, watch what I eat, and cut down on indulgences.

Life can be tough, but as long as you don't stint on the effort, your metabolism will greatly improve with these habits, and you'll end up much healthier, not to mention stronger. To a certain extent, you can even slow down the effects of aging. But people who naturally keep the weight off naturally, no matter what, don't need to exercise or watch their diet in order to stay trim. There can't be many of them who would go out of their way to take these troublesome measures when they don't need to, which is why, in many cases, their physical strength deteriorates as they age. If you don't exercise, your muscles will naturally weaken, as will your bones. Some of my readers may be the kind of people who easily gain weight, but the only way to understand what's really fair is to take a long-range view of things. For the reasons I give above, I think this physical nuisance should be viewed in a positive way, as a blessing. We should consider ourselves lucky that the red light is so clearly visible.

Book 61: Frankenstein

This is October's book club "spooky read".



It was fun, and strange. I want the monster's language learning ability and eloquence, though. Monsters these days just aren't as genial and eloquent as they used to be.

Book 60: Under the Loving Care of the Fatherly Leader

Here we have another installment in my North Korea series.



This covered virtually the entire history of North Korea as seen through Chinese and Soviet archives, propoganda anaysis, the author's three visits to the DPRK, and defector interviews. It was a more nuanced view of the country and Kim Il-sung and Kim Jong-il than some things I have read; some events and characters were portrayed in a positive light.

The book was written before the death of Kim Jong-il, so the discussion of his successor is interesting and gave additional insight about the Great Successor and also those who did not become the new supreme leader.

Stylistically, the book was a little jarring. Some of the information from defector interviews is presented in a narrative, while some is presented as transcripts of questions and answers. I found myself wondering why the author made this decision. The ending was very interesting as well, but also a bit strange.

Book ?: Moby Dick

I recently heard about the Moby Dick Big Read project: each chapter of the book will be read by a different person (celebrity and non-celebrity) and posted on the website, a day at a time.

The recordings will continue until the end of January 2012, so this really won't count in my total for this year. Postings started on September 16, so I'm already a little bit behind.

Who would like to join me? Anyone?

Book 59: Middlesex

Gasp. I've just discovered that this was an Oprah's Book Club pick. Oprah and I don't usually read the same stuff, so this came as a bit of a surprise.



But I really, really loved this. Oh, the writing was so good. Oh, the characters were so interesting--that's kind of an understatement. I listened to the audio book, and sometimes I thought the voice talent had a bit too much saliva, but hey, dry mouth isn't fun to listen to, either.

It seems that Oprah and I agree on this one.

Book 58: Year of Wonders

I've read (listened to) two other books by Geraldine Brooks this year, and they were both very good, so I jumped at the chance to listen to this one.



I loved most of it. The writing was lovely and the story was very interesting.

But the ending was unsatisfying and didn't seem to fit the rest of the story or the time period. There, have I ruined it for any of you who might have wanted to read it now? I'm still kind of mad that it ended the way it did. Grrr.

Book 57: Wheat Belly

I am so impressionable. Call me Gluten Free Girl now.



Yes, after listening to about half of this book about the evils of gluten, I have been gluten free for *gasp* three days.

Is there any ill that gluten is not implicated in? This author thinks not. And while I may not agree with everything he says, I do think wheat is making me fatter. And so I embark upon my gluten-free adventure.

One very minor pet peeve of mine: Neither the voice talent who read the audio book and nor any of the people who supervised and edited the audio know how to pronounce quinoa properly.

Book 56: May the Road Rise Up to Meet You

This is September's book club read. I enjoyed it.



The characters were engaging, and the story was interesting.

I found its descriptions of awful things (the Civil War, slavery) a lot less disturbing than what I have recently read, so that was nice, though it feels a little like emotional dishonesty. But I was grateful not to have to stop every few minutes and decide if I wanted to continue reading.

I was a little disappointed when I discovered that the characters were all going to be romantically involved with one of the other ones, but that is a peculiar quirk of mine. And the ending was unsatisfying and confusing for reasons I haven't yet figured out for myself.

Book 55: The Shallows

Maybe this book should be subtitled: What Everything is Doing to Our Brains.



The first part of the book went into great detail about neuroplasticity and how every new technology (including something as basic as a writing system or a hammer) affects the brain. Long ago, Socrates was worried that writing ideas down would have negative effects on thinking and ideas. And yes, writing things down and being able to read them did change the brain, but I don't think most of us would consider that a problem. (Like Socrates, I prefer to sing hymns from memory, rather than reading from a hymnbook.)

I really enjoyed the book, even as a digital immigrant. Even my little analog brain is affected by the division of attention and the constant input of the web. The effects will be even greater for digital natives like my kidlets.

Book 54: The Feminine Mystique

I decided I needed to read this if I wanted to consider myself a feminist, so that I knew more about what feminism means. I'm not a 50s housewife; I only play one on TV.



The first few chapters were especially good and eye-opening. Later, it got a little bit dated (homosexuality and autism caused by an overly-attached, immature mother?!). But the final chapter, which included suggestions for ways women can find meaningful, creative ways to enrich their lives, was great as well.

Book 53: Coming Out of the Ice

Didja think I was going to stop reading? It felt (to me) like a long pause between books 52 and 53.

Maybe it was because I kept trying to quit listening to this book. I tried to quit twice within about half an hour the other day. But I always went back because I just had to know what happened.




This is a memoir by Victor Herman, an American man who went, with his family, to the Soviet Union in 1931. His father helped to run a Ford auto plant in Nizhny Novgorod. And, well, bad things started to happen. Any one of them probably should have killed Victor, but he was pretty much indestructible, so he survived assault after assault.

Victor's relationship to his wife, his daughters, his father, and his mother are beautiful aspects of the book.

Book 52: 1493

Hooray! Book 52! Now I don't have to read again until January 1, 2013!

Yeah, not really. That would be a challenge: "Catherine's Zero Book Challenge for the Last Four Months of 2012".



Anyway, back to 1493.  The content of this book was amazing. There really is no aspect of our lives that is not touched by the "Columbian Exchange", or the transfer of people, animals, insects, diseases, and goods around the world that began with Colombus' voyage. The writing was a bit dry sometimes.

Book 51: Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World that Can't Stop Talking

Lots of people I know have recommended this book, and it was great, particularly if you are an introvert, or know someone who is (and that really is everyone, since a third to a half of all people are introverts). Personally, I lean a bit toward the introvert side of the spectrum.



One of my favorite parts was about Asian students tending to be more introverted and their perceptions of classroom discussions being a waste of time because student comments can sometimes be nonsense. If you've ever been in a (ridiculous) class where you were graded on your participation (ugh), you have probably seen that in action. It makes me wonder a bit about what my Asian students *really* thought of my classes when I was teaching.

A lot of the Western world is geared toward extroverts, so it's good to be reminded that being introverted does not equal a deficient personality.

Book 50: Farm City

You may have seen me walking around town this week alone, laughing aloud. It was thanks to this audio book.



Novella Carpenter started an urban farm in a run-down neighborhood in downtown Oakland and wrote about her experiences.

Apparently, chickens are the gateway drug in the urban farm. Next, I may be getting a beehive (well, yes, that thought has crossed my mind) and maybe some rabbits. To eat. Gulp.

Today:

Tomorrow?

Book 49: The First Twenty Minutes

If you need more encouragement to exercise, then this is the book for you. Interested in better cognition? Longer telomeres? No shrinking *ahem* gonads?



The book summarizes much of the current research on exercise: that it slows aging, improves cognition, prevents and treats a bunch of diseases and disorders, and improves longevity and the quality of those additional years. I'll take it all!

The book also discusses why exercise alone won't always help you lose weight, why lots of us don't like to exercise, and why being active throughout the day and not just in an isolated bout of activity is most beneficial.

Book 48: The Great Gatsby

Like many of you, I read this in high school, lo these many, many years ago. I remembered only one thing about it, and that was something about Robert Redford and Mia Farrow. Oh wait . . . .




Well, I loved it. It was so well-written: so spare, yet so descriptive! I listened to the audio book, and it was just a delight to listen to.

And now I feel that education is wasted on the young. I should probably re-read everything I read in my youth.

Book 47: Wild: Lost and Found on the Pacific Coast Trail

I heard just a snippet of this author being interviewed on NPR and thought the book sounded interesting enough to try. Apparently, if you want me to read your book, all you have to do is be interviewed on NPR. When I started it, I thought I was reading a West-Coast, female-hiker version of Bill Bryson's A Walk in the Woods.



Well, I was wrong. The book really turned out to be mostly about an internal journey that is very difficult to describe. I came to understand a bit why the author might have done some of the unfathomable (from my perspective) things she had done prior to starting her trek, and that's the best kind of reading experience there is, I think: beginning to understand someone who is very different from you.

Book 46: People of the Book

It took me a little while to get into this one, but once I did, I was hooked.



People of the Book is historical fiction about the creation and survival of the Sarajevo Haggadah, the oldest surviving text of the story of the Passover. It is a beautiful illuminated manuscript which originated in Spain in the 15th century. Here is an image of one of the illuminated pages:



I listened to the audio book of this one, and as the story fell into place, there were times that my mouth dropped open in amazement. Geraldine Brooks tells beautiful stories in a wonderfully understated way.

Book 45: The Secret Piano

This book is about a young musician who came of age during the Cultural Revolution.



I've read quite a few books about this time in Chinese history. Each person would have had a different experience during the Cultural Revolution, and this was an interesting one. It emphasized the feeling of having lost years and belonging to a lost generation.

The book piqued my interest in Bach's Goldberg Variations. I'm off to listen to her recording.

Book 44: Freeing Your Child from Anxiety

How about freeing me from anxiety?



This book was great. It helped me understand my own inclinations toward anxiety and how to combat them. I wish very much that my own parents had had a book like this when I was a kid.

Book 43: Caleb's Crossing

Oh, what a delight.



This was another audio book and the voice talent was perfect for the story. The language was one of the best aspects of the book for me, and the woman who read for the audio book really brought the language to life. Colonial language never sounded so good!

Book 42: Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet

We have a winner, folks--for the worst book of 2012 so far!



This book raised my ire from the second chapter in, when a glaring anachronism made its appearance (I have heard it was fixed in later editions, though). The characters did things that didn't make sense, too much was explained and reexplained, and overall, the writing wasn't at all to my taste. There were far, far too many similes. On the bright side, the narration of the audio book was very good.

Book 41: When Women Were Birds

This book was one of the recommendations on Radio West's summer book show. Shame on me, I've never read any of Terry Tempest Williams' work before.



The book revolves around Terry's mother's journals, which she leaves to Terry when she dies. But they are all blank. What was her mother saying with these empty journals, and why did she leave them to her daughter?

I really loved almost everything about this book.