Mother's Day

 Have a bookish mother in your life? Here are some books that might make her day.

 

Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus

“For Elizabeth, cooking wasn’t some preordained feminine duty. As she’d told Calvin, cooking was chemistry. That’s because cooking actually is chemistry.”

Malibu Rising by Taylor Jenkins Reid

“What a gift it was to know so clearly what you were not, who you did not want to be. Nina wasn’t sure she’d ever asked herself that question.”

Ms. Hempel Chronicles by Sarah Shun-lien Bynum

“How could she not be depleted when she came home, having been exposed for hours, without protection, to all those thrumming radiant selves? Here they were, just old enough to have discovered their souls, but not yet dulled by the ordinary act of survival, not yet practiced in dissembling.”

Simon the Fiddler by Paulette Jiles

“To Simon, the world of musical structures was far more real than the shoddy saloons in which he had to play. Nothing could match it, nothing in this day-to-day world could ever come up to it. It existed outside him. It was better than he was. He was always on foot in that world, an explorer in busted shoes.”

The Chicken Sisters by KJ Dell'Antonia

“Good fried chicken was remarkably hard to come by in New York, but this---tender, with just enough crust-only bits protruding, skin peeling easily away from the meat---this was good. The fries were thin and still hot, some with crunch, some with bite, lightly sprinkled with the salt blend they'd always used. The biscuits were fresh and flaky, and the salad's iceberg lettuce was dressed in Mimi's trademark sweet oil dressing---a closely guarded (but really very simple, and once very common) recipe.”

Why Fish Don't Exist: A Story of Loss, Love, and the Hidden Order of Life by Lulu Miller

“It was the dandelion principle! To some people a dandelion might look like a weed, but to others that same plant can be so much more. To an herbalist, it’s a medicine—a way of detoxifying the liver, clearing the skin, and strengthening the eyes. To a painter, it’s a pigment; to a hippie, a crown; a child, a wish. To a butterfly, it’s sustenance; to a bee, a mating bed; to an ant, one point in a vast olfactory atlas.”

"those thrumming radiant selves"

An imagination. A worship. A scribble.

If you ever need a rabbit-hole to fall through, google “collective noun for writers.” 

All three feel true for those included in the collection The O. Henry Prize Stories: 100^th Anniversary Edition edited by Laura Furman. I was especially taken with the story “Julia and Sunny” by Sarah Shun-lien Bynum. Partly I think because it chronicles a couples’ friendship which I’ve always aspired to but never been able to achieve. I admit to feeling a smidge smug when the friendship dissolves along with one of the marriages, but more importantly, familiar details of harried parenthood stuck with me more. Why is the trip to the post office always pushed to the bottom of the list? How we long for naptime.

I was chuffed*, then, to discover Bynum’s story collection Likes. From Waldorf school faires, celebrity neighbors, and orange cats to middle school tribulations, each story is a little bit magical without failing to be relatable. In her novel Ms. Hempel Chronicles, we enter the world of seventh grade teacher Beatrice Hempel with all the student (and teacher) drama that entails. Ms. Hempel looks with envy upon those who have moved on to other careers but is not quite sure how to step off the pedestal built by her adoring students.  

A chapter. A library. An excellence.

Yep, those too.

 

*Thank you, British baking shows

Five Tuesdays in Winter

Did you make a resolution to read more in 2022? You might try the challenge over at Book Riot. Or you might create a BINGO board like the one provided by my local library.

I started off the year with a new book of short stories by one of my favorite authors, Lily King. Five Tuesdays in Winter includes a little romance, a lot of adolescent awkwardness, and a fair bit of mother-child angst. King’s characters are reminiscent of friends you had in college or a coworkers’ eccentric aunt. Ones you can look on fondly, yet remain nostalgically detached, while you enjoy hearing about their antics. While the stories touch on realistic themes, they remain sunny enough for even the coldest winter afternoon of reading.

For more short story recommendations, click here. (Or click on "stories" under the Index on the right.)

Sonic Youth

The heat wave in Washington this week (it got up to 84, y’all), reminded me of this post from 2009. It makes me nostalgic, not only for air conditioning, but also because that three year old can now drive herself to Sonic.

The air conditioner in my apartment sucks. This is June in Texas after all. So I pile the kids in the station wagon and drive down the block to Sonic. Rolling down the windows lets in a light breeze tinged with the smell of the afternoon’s tater tots. Moments later our drinks arrive. I unwrap the extra straw to keep the nine-month-old occupied, hand back the strawberry shake to my daughter, and open The Red Convertible.

Louise Erdrich’s collection of short stories is part tart, part sweet, just like the cherry limeade in the cup holder. And I even manage to finish a couple of the stories before my three-year-old pokes a hole in the Styrofoam cup, and we find a use for all those extra napkins.

Looking for more summer reads? Try this list for 2021.

 

Oh my, it’s fruitcake weather!

I wrote this post back in December of 2008. It’s still one of my favorite posts (and stories). 

With her Texas twang, my aunt does a perfect rendition of that line from Truman Capote's “A Christmas Memory.” After first watching the movie version at her house, several years later I encountered the audio version on a long car ride to Arkansas. It wasn’t until I bought a copy of Breakfast at Tiffany’s at a church book sale that I read the print version. It’s always with a sense of delight tempered with melancholy that I turn to the story, sometime between Thanksgiving and Christmas, to follow Buddy and his friend as they buy whiskey from Mr. Ha Ha Jones, send fruitcakes to the White House, and craft homemade kites for Christmas morning.

Every year different details in the story stand out. The year my mom made homemade fruitcake, I could taste the citron as I read their recipe. Last year, when my daughter was infatuated with dolls, I could picture exactly the wicker buggy with wobbly wheels they use to haul pecans. This year, I noticed the prices of things in the Depression era story – two dollars for a quart of whiskey, fifty cents for a Christmas tree, a dime for a picture show. 

(As I reread this in 2018, my current pursuit of a theology degree drew my eye to Miss Sook’s reflections on seeing the Lord at the end of her life. As she says, “I’ll wager it never happens. I’ll wager at the very end a body realizes the Lord has already shown Himself. That things as they are…just what they’ve always seen, was seeing Him.”)

This story sates that yen you had for something rich and sweet and Christmasy, and like fruitcake, endures December after December. So after you've set up the Advent wreath, made the gingerbread cookies, and assembled some 15-odd nativity sets, it’s time to curl up with a hot mug of cider and “A Christmas Memory.”

Summer Slide

Even though summer didn’t officially begin until yesterday, I feel like I’m already behind on my summer reading. Hearing this story on the radio didn't help matters. 

Browsing this list, I can’t wait to check out the latest by Michael Ondaatje, dive into the short stories of Amy Bonnaffons (one of which I recently heard on TAL), and puzzle out the “fictional feints” in a crime thriller by Sergio de la Pava.

Then there’s the summer slide. While searching for summer reading lists for the kids, I stumbled across Brightly. This site abounds with reading resources and lists (like this ever so timely one) for kids, parents, and teachers.

Want to mix it up? Check out these reading challenges...

For kids

For teens

For adults

Not sure what to read? Here are a few recommendations...

For kids

For teens

For adults

“After the initial kerplunk”

This week’s challenge was to read a collection of stories by a woman. Having loved her novel and memoir, I picked up Thunderstruck and Other Stories by Elizabeth McCracken.

In the title story, Wes and Laura worry their pre-teen daughter Helen is growing up too fast. The family decides (as one does) to take a spur of the moment summer trip to Paris. “The plan was to disrupt their lives, a jolt to Helen’s system before school started again in the fall…Perhaps the problem all this time was that her soul had been written in French.” And it appears it has, as Helen discovers an ease in communicating with taxi drivers and food vendors in the French she has learned in school.

The family slowly starts to relax into the rhythm of their days and the parents begin letting their daughters venture out on afternoon excursions by themselves. However, they learn they’ve let their guard down too soon when the phone rings in the middle of the night. A nurse tells them Helen is in the ICU.

Days turn to weeks, and eventually the family decides to send Laura and their youngest daughter back to the States. As Wes watches his daughter slowly, painfully recover, he turns to art as therapy. And we are left wondering who needs more healing.

Perhaps my favorite part of the book is the interview in the back between the author, McCracken, and Ann Patchett. Writers and friends, the two discuss memoirs, the thought process behind organizing the collection in this book, and book prizes.

Find suggestions for more story collections here.

News Break

Sometimes I need to turn off NPR and turn up the song that comes on KISS FM. It helps if the kids are in the car because they actually know the lyrics.

Sometimes I need to set aside The New Yorker and dog-ear the pages of a recipe book. It helps if I don’t check the mail for a while.

Sometimes I need to eat cereal for dinner instead of salad. It helps if my husband has to work late.

Sometimes I need to log out of Facebook. It helps if I hide my phone.

Sometimes I need to close the book club book and open one of these. It helps.

Along for the Ride by Sarah Dessen

For fans of Jenny Han and Nina Lacour

The Hopefuls by Jennifer Close

For fans of Maria Semple and, well, Jennifer Close

Mystic Summer by Hannah McKinnon

For fans of Emily Giffin and Elin Hilderbrand

The Ramblers by Aidan Donnelley Rowley

For fans of Claire Messud and Emma Straub

When It Happens to You by Molly Ringwald

For fans of Maile Meloy and Celeste Ng

Hon no mushi

Ironically, it was after I traveled to Japan that I began reading Japanese writers. My husband introduced me to Murakami, and I discovered the short stories of Hisaye Yamamoto in one of the anthologies I was assigned to teach.

Upon arriving in the Northwest I reconnected with another teacher I had met while participating in the JET Program in Japan. She immediately got me to join the Pacific Northwest JET Alumni Association, and I immediately signed up for their book club. Be sure to click on the link for a great list of Japanese authors and titles.

This month’s book, published by Seattle’s Chin Music Press, is Why Ghost’s Appear  written by Todd Shimoda and art by LJC Shimoda.

Mizuno Ren, an entomological illustration specialist, has disappeared. His mother hires a private investigator to find him. The search leads him to spurious fortune tellers, government clerks, travel agents specializing in sex tours, and, yes, a doppelganger.  Throughout the search, the detective feels his own soul splitting apart as he speculates on another case he investigated 20 years before.

Returning again and again to Mizuno’s mother, the detective finds her a much more complex personality than he had first thought. He observes “most people, nearly all I should say, are quite simple. They’ve developed a routine in life, they exist by four or five rules, have four or five experiences on which they’ve defined their lives.”

I kept waiting for the narrator to reveal himself, ala The Sixth Sense, to be an obake, but that never happens. I think. Like a lot of Japanese fiction, this novel is mystical and sometimes mysterious. 

Oh my, it’s fruitcake weather

Originally posted on December 24, 2008. Of the seven years I've been writing this blog, this is still one of my favorite posts (and stories). 

 With her Texas twang, my aunt does a perfect rendition of that line from Truman Capote's “A Christmas Memory.” After first watching the movie version at her house, several years later I encountered the audio version on a long car ride to Arkansas. It wasn’t until I bought a copy of Breakfast at Tiffany’s at a church book sale that I read the print version. It’s always with a sense of delight tempered with melancholy that I turn to the story, sometime between Thanksgiving and Christmas, to follow Buddy and his friend as they buy whiskey from Mr. Ha Ha Jones, send fruitcakes to the White House, and craft homemade kites for Christmas morning.

 Every year different details in the story stand out. The year my mom made homemade fruitcake, I could taste the citron as I read their recipe. Last year, when my daughter was infatuated with dolls, I could picture exactly the wicker buggy with wobbly wheels they use to haul pecans. This year, I noticed the prices of things in the Depression era story – two dollars for a quart of whiskey, fifty cents for a Christmas tree, a dime for a picture show.

 This story sates that yen you had for something rich and sweet and Christmasy, and like fruitcake, endures December after December. So after you've set up the Advent wreath, made the gingerbread cookies, and assembled some 15-odd nativity sets, it’s time to curl up with a hot mug of cider and “A Christmas Memory.”

Very Merry (until it's not)

I probably have mentioned before that my daughter and I are suckers for any Christmas movie produced for ABC Family or the Hallmark Channel.  But when she goes to bed, every once in a while, I also like to watch a good feel-depressed holiday movie featuring a dysfunctional family.

When I’ve run out of those, there’s always a book or two to fill the void (or make it bigger).

Refund by KarenBender

Silver Linings Playbook by Matthew Quick

Husband and Wife by Leah Stewart

This is Where I Leave You by Jonathan Tropper

Other Languages

I’ve tried to learn two languages in my life. During my Spanish phase, I subscribed to Latina magazine, listened to Shakira, and went salsa dancing every weekend. I worked in social services for migrant workers in Oregon and dated an earnest young man from El Salvador living in Texas. After grad school, I decided to teach English in Japan and so began learning Japanese.  The teachers at the junior high where I worked disappointedly commented on my “Japanese” demeanor. I think they were looking forward to meeting a more outgoing American. In both cases, I was never able to test the theory that the best way to learn a language is to fall in love since the love of my life happens to speak English – granted with a South Texas accent. However, in two books I read recently, falling in love does inspire the characters to learn a new language and consequently change the course of their lives.

The Other Language by Francesca Marciano

In the title story of this short story collection, Marciano writes about a grieving family who travels from Italy to Greece for a holiday. The older boy, Luca, gravitates towards an older Greek girl and leaves his younger sisters behind. His younger sister Emma marvels at how quickly they are able to communicate. Later in the summer, she herself becomes entranced, from afar, by two English brothers vacationing in the village. English, to her ears, sounds “authoritative, distinguished, exact.” After returning to Italy, Emma spends the next school year attending a weekly English class and obsessively listening to The Beatles and Joni Mitchell. Magically, she is able to talk to the boys the next summer.  Later in the story, after recalling the story to her American husband while on a road trip, she says, “I wouldn’t be who I am today if it wasn’t for those two. I wouldn’t even speak English.” Or be married to the man sitting next to her who simply asks to see the map of where they are going.

Counting by 7s by Holly Goldberg Sloan

In this middle grade novel, the protagonist Willow Chance loves gardening and the number seven. After being mistaken for the janitor due to her wardrobe choices and being accused of cheating on an achievement test that she aces, she has had little success in making new friends. After meeting an older girl, Mai, and her brother at the counseling center, Willow decides the solution to her problem is learning to speak Vietnamese. Willow accurately remarks, “I’m right now someone that other people might find interesting to observe. I’m speaking Vietnamese, which is not my ‘native tongue.’”   Little does Willow know that  the reader will find her, and Sloan's other characters, even more interesting to observe even when a tragic even leaves her speechless “in any language.”

Selected Shorts

A short selection of short story collections I've been delving into:

American Innovations: Stories

by Rivka Galchen 

The Woman Who Borrowed Memories: Selected Stories 

by Tove Jansson

 

Something Rich and Strange: Selected Stories

by Ron Rash

 

The Right One

Many times a love story can end badly. But then there are the stories in this book. 

All There Is by Dave Isay is a collection of love stories from StoryCorps. Although I enjoyed reading the narratives, I found the ones I had heard first on the radio most touching. However, for those times when you don't have access to audio, this book brings together voices that are clear enough to hear anyway.

Take That, Read This

All it takes is a little sibling ribbing to resume. To recap my reads for the last few week...um... months - Anthony Doerr. I started About Grace while on a plane. I don't remember a word of the safety spiel or what flavor the peanut was I dropped between the seats. Instead I remember snowflakes and floods, Caribbean heat and Oedipal fear. Doerr's substantive details withstand the busiest of reading environments. It can be somewhat of a nail-biting read, but the landing is spot on. Next came Memory Wall, a book of short stories dealing with memories and loss. Disturbingly well-crafted. Then I arrived at The Shell Collector, another collection of stories. A boy loses his sight and is turned on to the fascinating textures of sea life. A wilderness hunter travels into civilization to marvel at his wife's magic. (Drunken) fishermen vie for the biggest fish in Europe. Finally, summer reads to feel good about. I should know. This book and this one are waiting on my nightstand.