Urban Legends

A greener doctor

2011-05-19T21:10:00.000-07:00

I am not usually one to suggest taking medicine or supplements whose potency and effects are uncertain. I trained in a school of medicine and have come to respect the protection afforded by FDA approval and the safety assured by large randomized controlled trials of traditional medicines. My goal here is not to prescribe herbal medicines or suggest that anyone use them on a regular basis.

Instead, I aim here to highlight some of the issues I have with medicine and healthcare these days.

The rising cost of healthcare, and more particularly, the rising cost of medications, threatens to put healthcare and doctor-prescribed or traditional medications out of reach of many people worldwide. So then people who cannot access these traditional medicines will be forced to look to alternative sources of care and treatment for their symptoms. And they will need to use less expensive alternative treatments to heal their ailments.

Historically, herbal medicine was the only medicine available. Before there were drug companies researching and designing new drugs, humans were foraging for plants and trying different tonics, teas, and tinctures to treat themselves and their families. Herbal medicine knowledge in America came with the enslaved people from Africa and from the Native Americans who were already living here at the time. That knowledge has informed the development and purification of many of the common, older traditional medications that we still use today including aspirin and digoxin.

Around the same time the Flexner Report aimed to close down hospitals that were deemed unsafe, efforts were made to decrease the availability of non-regulated medicines and to shut down quackery doctor practices. Now the resurgence of the popularity and more widespread availability of herbal remedies may be indication that there is a growing disparity in access to what we have come to consider traditional sources of healthcare and medication.

I paid a decent amount of money to receive a seasonal share of herbal medicine from a Community-Supported Medicine cooperative in Lancaster so that I could learn more about it. But theoretically, anyone with knowledge and enough green space to forage or plant could find these plants and make their own medicines very inexpensively. I'm not sure that's a good idea, but I don't know whether someone without health insurance has a lot of other options.

Stinging Nettles

2011-05-16T20:56:00.000-07:00

This week, my Community-Supported Medicine share included a bag of stinging nettles. The instructions enclosed explained that the leaves should not be touched because they would cause contact dermatitis.

The nettles contain high levels of vitamin C, iron, calcium, and potassium, and they are useful for decreasing symptoms of seasonal allergies. They are also supposed to be helpful for enhancing natural immunity and can be taken at the beginning of a feverish illness.

Stinging nettle leaves can be treated to drop their nettles by dropping them in boiling water or by freezing them.

I infused half the leaves into a tea. After I dumped them in boiling water, I turned off the heat, covered the pot, and left them soak for 15-20 minutes. I strained off the greens and then sweetened he liquid with a little maple syrup. The heat of the tea reminds me of chicken soup in the way it seems to clear your sinuses, and it was actually more palatable than I expected. I couldn't find any reason to drink the tea daily now since I don't suffer from seasonal allergeis, so I froze the tea and the other half of the nettle leaves.

The boiled leaves themselves had the consistency of cooked spinach, but after 15 minutes of infusion, they weren't very appetizing and went into my compost bin. I haven't found any ohter specific instructions on how to prepare the leaves for eating, though I did see them described as "delicious."

Let me know if you see another way to use stinging nettles.

The President's House

2010-12-17T21:08:00.000-08:00

A new memorial to slavery recently opened on Independence Mall right next to the Liberty Bell. The full name is The President's House: Freedom and Slavery in the Making of a New Nation.

Inga Saffron, the Inquirer's architecture critic calls it "a full-throated expression of pain and rage."

This is her description of the memorial:

"On one side you see the base of the house's curved parlor window, where Washington received official delegations and perhaps brooded over the fate of the new republic. Opposite that curve are the remains of the kitchen, where the enslaved Hercules prepared food for the first family and state events."

She also says this:

"The most meaningful side is the plain east wall engraved with the names of nine enslaved Africans. Seven are identified only by first name because they had no surnames. To see that omission is to understand how brutally America's enslaved were robbed of their identities."

And finally this:

"The gulf between what we say our nation stands for and the way we conduct our business was huge in those early decades. The gulf remains immense today. This memorial may bring us closer to self-awareness. But it is still not near enough."

Updates

2010-07-30T06:16:00.001-07:00

Hi guys,
Just wanted to let you know that I have not fallen off the Earth. Instead I got attacked by Chinese-character spammers and caught a nasty computer virus. I had to wipe my computer clean and start over. Luckily, I didn't lose any of my files and my blog seems ok. But I have turned off the comments for a while hoping the spammers go away.
I am actively writing and will keep you all updated as developments occur. Of course that means that I am neglecting all my blogging, reading, reviewing, and following blogs.
So if you want to comment or chat, just email me or comment on one of my other blogs that I don't update anymore either!!
Hope you are all doing well.
Trixie

My upcoming 2 year blogiversary

2010-05-20T05:38:00.000-07:00

It's hard to believe that May 25 will be 2 years since I started this blog with the idea of Reading and Writing about It. Over that time, I have jumped around a bit, and I still don't know exactly what It is, but I am certainly starting to get a better idea. I hope that over the next 2 years, you will too.

It's been quite a while since I've written or read much of anything here. It's been kind of an interesting year, I guess. In May and June, I was big and sweaty and pregnant. I had my baby in July. We spent most of the summer going back and forth to the beach. I went back to work after maternity leave in October. The whole family had the flu in November. We celebrated the holidays in December like everyone else. I was on call in January. I can't remember what we did in February. I think I was depressed in March. I was on call again in April. And here we are in May. Where has the year gone?

As I look back over the past 2 years of blog posts, I would like to say a few things.

First, I have no intentions of stopping this blog. I started this blog to find other readers with common interests. I'm not sure whether that has happened. My blog roll lists 11 followers, but I don't know if any of you are still following. I would love it if anyone who reads this post and is interested in what is upcoming to leave a comment here.

Over the same period of time, the last 2 years, my intentions to write have waxed and waned. And let me tell you that I have considered walking away from my writing, but it is just not possible. The characters in my head speak to me, and new ones pop in continually. I also feel that the act of writing, for me, is therapeutic. I feel more at ease when I am writing and when I think of myself as a writer because, somehow, it justifies all the crazy thoughts in my head.

On April 5, 2009 (more than a year ago), I posted a list of 100 books to read for the Fill-in-the-Gaps project. I have just updated my list to reflect the grand total of 2 books that I have read, 3 other books I have started, and the movie that I saw from the list. I have until New Year's 2015 and 25% forgiveness, meaning that I have 73 more books to read to complete that goal. I'm thinking that I better get cracking!

A couple other things I have planned for the next 2 years on this blog.

Of course I am going to continue to read and review books here. I think this blog might be part of a good platform for my writing. I also hope that it will help me to focus my writing. My focus, which may not be obvious from what I have read previously, but may be more evident from my list of 100 books, will be international books, African and African American stories, and books about cultures and places different than mine. I recently went to the library and started reading one book from my list and 2 others that aren't on my list, so of course, the list isn't gilded.

And I will continue to write. Over the past week, I dug out the manuscript I wrote for NaNoWriMo in November 2008. I did edit and post a bit of it online back in January, but I have really not looked at it much otherwise. And even though it is terrible, I was pleased with what I found. There were parts where I said to myself, this is great, and I forgot about this part. Really, it is more of a journal of what I would like to do and what I think I can do. In some cases, I could not decide which word to use and was trying to increase my word total, so I have 4 different synonyms listed as choices. It is a mess, but it is a start.

Over the last week, I have been looking it over, and rearranging some things, and struggling with some fundamental questions that I think all writers struggle with: how to structure my manuscript, what point of view to use, how to write good dialogue, and most importantly, how to show instead of tell. And what strikes me is that I have no formal training in writing, and yet, I have figured these things out myself over the past 2 years. I find it quite amazing. Of course, I still don't know the answers to the questions, but at least it feels like I'm asking the right questions!

What has become evident to me is that I do need to supplement this self-taught knowledge with some formal training in writing. Like every other fledgling writer, I have considered an MFA. If I were accepted, I could even have the coursework paid for as a faculty member of a University that has an MFA program. But as always, the concern is time. I still have 2 kids and a fulltime job to contend with.

A friend of a friend has suggested that I check out the workshops offered by Writer's Digest. I have done that, and I am considering signing up for the one entitled, Fundamentals of Fiction Writing. It is a 12 week course, and it covers the fundamentals I mention above and would give the student participant the opportunity to get much-needed feedback from peers and a published writer instructor. I could start as early as next week, but it looks like it is offered beginning every month.

And so let me close with this: Over the next 2 years, readers of this blog will find a writing platform relevant to my writing, updates on my writing that demonstrate real progress, and a flock of followers who will be calling out, "More, Trixie, more!"

Sprite Step Off Challenge

2010-03-05T07:35:00.000-08:00

I have been following the story of the two college sororities who recently competed in Sprite's step competition with great interest.

Here are links to Zeta Tau Alpha's and Alpha Kappa Alpha's routines from YouTube. ZTA is a white sorority from Arkansas. AKA is the nation's oldest black sorority and one of the Divine Nine. You can watch the dancers for yourself.

Controversy has erupted that ZTA won the competition. So much controversy that Sprite recounted the votes and ended up awarding both groups the $100,000 prize in the end.

And here is Annette John Hall's column about the story from today's Inquirer. All I can say is that this country has a long way to go.

Hercules' escape

2010-03-05T07:31:00.000-08:00

Here is the second part of the story of Hercules, President George Washington's enslaved cook here in Philadelphia. This is the story of his escape, published in the Philadephia Inquirer a few weeks ago.

George Washington's cook, Hercules

2010-03-05T07:28:00.000-08:00

Here's another interesting piece of Philadelphia history. It's a story about Hercules, President George Washington's enslaved cook. This is part 1 of 2. The story continues with his escape.

Quilting and the Underground Railroad

2010-03-05T07:15:00.000-08:00

I wanted to share an interesting article about the role quilts played in the Underground Railroad from The Philadelphia Inquirer Friday, February 19.

Apparently, some people think some of the quilting patterns were used to give clues as to escape routes on the Underground Railroad. Other historians suggest that these meanings are only legend. This controversy is discussed in the book, Hidden in Plain View: A Secret Story of Quilts and the Underground Railroad.

Dear readers

2010-03-05T07:11:00.000-08:00

Dear Blog readers,

I have been neglecting you, and for that I apologize. I certainly hope that you are all surving this crazy weather that we have been having. Personally, I feel like I'm hanging on by a shoestring. In fact, I've had so little time to read that I've had to content myself with reading the newspaper!

What follows is a few posts with links to articles I've been reading in the Inquirer.

Thank you for reading.
Trixie

Diary of a girl in Alabama

2009-11-19T08:26:00.000-08:00

My first reaction when I heard that Belle de Jour had revealed herself as a 34 year old research scientist was one of disbelief.

I'm a 34 year old medical scientist. Why didn't I think of that?!

Now I would never have sex for money. And so my second response was to consider my creative options.

Memoirs are all the rage now, but I don't think anyone would buy a book about a 34 year old, exceedingly lucky woman who grew up in a two parent household in the comforts of suburbia to become a family doctor.

From that thought process was born idea #137 (for this year 2009). I'm starting a serial story posted online entitled "Diary of a girl in Alabama."

It will be based on the bit of a novel I wrote for last year's NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month - every November - for the uninitiated). On reflection, my plan last year was pretty bad. I wrote from multiple points of view, skipped through at least 3 different time periods, and attempted to cross 10 generations of an African family in America. I've spent the last year brainstorming about where to take it, and I've decided to split it into several different formats, using the idea of vertical publishing.

I am starting with the online piece based on a young enslaved girl in 1850 Alabama. The story will be told through her diary. That site is up and open for viewing. The plan is that the first entry will post January 1, 2010. I intend to have at least several weeks of daily entries posted to publish automatically beginning then.

The next step will be to write a short story with the intent to publish in print. Not sure yet which piece of the larger tale that will be. And of course from there, I intend to write for ever-larger venues.

I invite you all to follow me on Diary of a girl in Alabama. Let's see where this ends up.

New poet

2009-10-16T07:01:00.000-07:00

Nana Fredua-Agyeman, blogger at ImageNations, writes amazing, thought-provoking poetry. Here his poem Advanced Lobotomy in An Infant Mind.

Chimamanda Adichie: The danger of a single story

2009-10-16T06:22:00.000-07:00

I am seriously becoming obsessed with Nigerian writers these days. Count among them Chinua Achebe, Chimamanda Adichie, and Uwem Akpan. I will redefine Nigeria in my mind by reading these writers and the multitude of stories they tell.

This is a beautiful and inspirational talk given by Chimamanda Adichie, author of Half of a Yellow Sun, The Thing Around Your Neck, and Purple Hibiscus. She discusses the idea that there should never be a single story used to describe a particular person or place.

I found this originally on Stephania's blog, Books of Gold. I found Stephania through Nana's blog, ImageNations. I need to credit them both for inspiring me to read more world literature!

Folk Wisdom and Mother Wit by Arvilla Payne-Jackson and John Lee

2009-10-12T05:40:00.001-07:00

Folk Wisdom and Mother Wit, which is subtitled John Lee--An African American Herbal Healer, is a fascinating and extensively referenced nonfiction work I read this weekend. I summarize it here to help me remember from where this information came.

This book is applicable to my research into the impact of conspiracy beliefs and mistrust of medical care and physicians on adherence to medication in African Americans with HIV. The subject is also highly applicable to to the novel I am writing.

Chapter 1: Historical Overview of African American Folk Medicine
This chapter describes the origins of African American traditional medicine from several points of view. First, there was a clash of cultures in America between the Native Americans, the European settlers, and the enslaved African people, and each of them brought their own medical principles into the mix. Second, medical care in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries did not have a lot to offer the ill and was primarily limited to the use of bleeding and blistering. Medicines used at the time included opiates and medications to induce vomiting, herbal home remedies, tonics, and whiskey or brandy. Additional knowledge of local plant life recognized by the enslaved people brought from Africa was necessary and welcomed.

Prior to the Civil War, physician medical care was less available to African Americans and was considered a last resort to the care given on the plantations by family, herbalists, conjurers, and granny midwives. After the Civil War, medical care continued to be divided because of socioeconomic and racial divisions that persisted with the Jim Crow laws. Use of "modern medicine" by African Americans has increased with levels of education and wealth. With the migration of African Americans to urban areas, medical care and hospitals became more accessible. Mistrust of medical care (stemming from the European American physicians' "use of slaves for experimentation with new surgical techniques and treatments") persisted, however, because of the excessive cost. The author's sources support that "Today, it is mostly poor African Americans who use folk medicine as the dependable alternative health resource."

Use of the African American folk medicine system persists today in both rural and urban areas by mostly poor African Americans because of accessibility and cost and because it is more personal and "more compatible with their perceptions of disease etiology and treatment." The decision of whether to use an herbalist or a physician may depend upon the type of illness and its perceived causes.

The author cites a study by Holly Mathews from 1992 describing the current state of health care in rural North Carolina. She attributes the use of folk medicine in this region to "geographic isolation in rural areas, lack of educational opportunities, limited or no access to government services, and extreme poverty." In addition, there is a paucity of available biomedical health care providers, especially in more rural parts of North Carolina. In this region, she found that 50 to 60 percent of African Americans used traditional medicine. It would be fascinating to replicate her study in North Philadelphia which differs from rural North Carolina only in its lack of geographic isolation and relative abundance of health care providers.

Chapter 2: Becoming an Herbalist
This chapter describes how Mr. Lee acquired his knowledge as an herbalist and also how he became recognized as a healer. As a child, he assisted his mother who was a midwife who delivered babies and treated medical illness in adults and children. Her traditional knowledge was based on her mixed descent from Lumbo and Cherokee Indian, Irish and British, and African heritage. Mr. Lee's grandmother was a healer of American Indian descent. Mr. Lee was thought to have some supernatural abilities to heal because he was born with a caul over his face. His father was also thought to have the ability to "talk-out-fire" and "talk-out-bleeding."

This section also describes the community's use of health care. Sick people would be cared for by their families. In cases of long illness, other families nearby would help with chores in the home or on the farm. When home remedies ceased to work, the family would consult midwives, herbalists, or "root doctors" (conjurers, I believe). The physician would be consulted only when a fever was persistent or recurrent and all other efforts had failed.

Chapter 3: Diagnostic System
This section describes the diagnostic system used by African American healers in traditional folk medicine and adapted by Mr. Lee. "In Mr. Lee's system the following binary qualities are used to describe the state of the blood: good/bad (blood purity), fast/slow (circulation), high/low (quantity/location), hot/cold (temperature), and thick/thin (viscosity). When a person is ill there is an imbalance in one or more of these factors."

I use some of this terminology today with my patients as I describe blood as thick when people tend to develop blood clots, and as thin in a patient who takes blood thinning medication like Coumadin.

As another example, impurities in the blood, such as a sexually transmitted disease like syphilis, would be categorized as bad blood. This terminology is evident in other works I've read such as James H. Jones' Bad Blood: The Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment.

Chapter 4: Classification of the Materia Medica and Illustrations
This section gives an overview of the classification of the herbs used by Mr. Lee which are indiginous to his locale in North Carolina. Some of the herbs were used medicinally by the Cherokee Indians who inhabited the area, others were the same as those used in Africa and recognized in the New World by enslaved peoples, and some had been introduced by European settlers.

This part was intriguing as I am curious, like the author herself, whether these natural herbs have true medicinal properties. This section contained examples of successful use of these remedies in actual cases of healing. For the most part, the remedies are herbs that were made into teas. But there are other things used by healers that were described as well. One example I found fascinating was the use of cobwebs as a bandage. This is apparently a technique used all over the world. Mr. Lee himself uses a combination of wasp's nest, soot, and cobweb to staunch the bleeding of wounds.

The second section of the book is a glossary of the herbs used by Mr. Lee with accompanying sketched illustrations. This glossary lists the local name, uses, and active ingredients in each plant.

The appendix is a listing of biologicals describing their medicinal uses: cobwebs, dirt dauber (wasp nest), ear wax, egg shell lining, hen house droppings, hog hoof, hog jaw marrow, sheep dung, and soot.

The Eight by Katherine Neville

2009-10-09T06:49:00.001-07:00

I recently finished reading The Eight by Katherine Neville.
And I loved it this time just as much as I did before.
The story centers around a figurative historical chess game using international players from world history. The plot was twisty and switched back and forth from 18th Century France to 1970's New York. Characters from both time periods travelled to Algiers as well.
I thought the story was inventive and imaginative. I'm certainly looking forward to reading her sequel.
Anyone else read this one?

Oprah's new pick

2009-09-22T09:20:00.000-07:00

Oprah Winfrey has announced her latest pick for her book club.

Say You're One of Them by Uwem Akpan

The starred review from Publishers Weekly (which I've pulled from Amazon) says:

Nigerian-born Jesuit priest Akpan transports the reader into gritty scenes of chaos and fear in his rich debut collection of five long stories set in war-torn Africa. An Ex-mas Feast tells the heartbreaking story of eight-year-old Jigana, a Kenyan boy whose 12-year-old sister, Maisha, works as a prostitute to support her family. Jigana's mother quells the children's hunger by having them sniff glue while they wait for Maisha to earn enough to bring home a holiday meal. In Luxurious Hearses, Jubril, a teenage Muslim, flees the violence in northern Nigeria. Attacked by his own Muslim neighbors, his only way out is on a bus transporting Christians to the south. In Fattening for Gabon, 10-year-old Kotchikpa and his younger sister are sent by their sick parents to live with their uncle, Fofo Kpee, who in turn explains to the children that they are going to live with their prosperous godparents, who, as Kotchikpa pieces together, are actually human traffickers. Akpan's prose is beautiful and his stories are insightful and revealing, made even more harrowing because all the horror—and there is much—is seen through the eyes of children.

Sounds very compelling. I'll certainly have to join Oprah to read this one.

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson

2009-09-17T11:25:00.000-07:00

The first of a trilogy of books written just before Swedish author Stieg Larsson’s death, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo is a fast-paced mystery wrapped up in a financial article from Business Week, a manual on hacking, and a statement of women’s rights.

I loved this fast-paced book filled with wicked plot changes. And I certainly didn’t anticipate the outcome of the ending at all. I won’t give it away.

I really enjoyed getting to know the main characters, and I am still trying to figure out what makes them tick. Especially the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. I’m looking forward to reading the rest of the trilogy.

A word of warning: some scenes are explicit descriptions of sexual violence. Might not be for the faint of heart or the easily offended.

The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri

2009-09-13T17:27:00.000-07:00

The Namesake is a novel by Pulitzer prize-winning author Jhumpa Lahiri. Set in late 20th century New England and New York City, it is a coming of age story of the Ganguli family, an immigrant family from India. Gogol Ganguli is hastily named for a Russian writer, and we see how this family decision effects the way he lives his life. We also see the impact moving to America has had on the rest of the family. We see the family develop through births, deaths, marriage, and divorce.

Lahiri has a wonderfully fluid and descriptive prose style that is warm and genuine. Her descriptions of the smallest details throughout the story lead the reader to believe that she has experienced this rich story herself. Her characterizations are rich, and by the end of the story, the reader knows the characters as well as the author must.

Lahiri switches from character to character to view the story and timeline from each person’s perspective. One criticism is that we do not fully understand each character's reaction to some of the events in the story. For example, we do not see Gogol mother’s reaction to pitfalls in his life. One can imagine the emotions any mother would have, and yet, Lahiri does not describe these reactions.

I am greatly looking forward to reading more by this author. I have her story collection, Interpreter of Maladies (for which she won the 2000 Pulitzer) on my list of 100 books for the Fill-in-the-Gaps project. I also now plan to read Unaccustomed Earth as well because I have heard that it is even better than this one.

A note: this was not on my 100 books list, but probably could have been as it fits the general characteristics of books I want to read to fill in my gaps - books about people and places different from me and mine.

Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe

2009-09-10T11:06:00.000-07:00

Things Fall Apart is the story of Okonkwo, a man of some repute in traditional Igbo society in Nigeria. As the story unfolds, the British colonials come in, introduce Christianity and British government, and begin to influence the culture and ways of the local people. Okonkwo's inability to accept these changes and his desire to follow Igbo tradition strictly eventually lead to his undoing.

The book takes the tribe through many different rituals, explaining each one. It describes reasons for wars between neighboring tribes, tribal government, ways of offending, preparing food, living quarters, arrangements of relationships. (I don't say marriage here because that is not the right term for the arrangements.)

I enjoyed this book, not because it entertained me, but because it taught me a lot about African culture in this part of Africa. I thought it was fascinating to see the clash between traditional African society and the influence of British rule.

[spoiler alert] The final lines sum the clash of these perspectives best when the British Commissioner was pontificating about the book he would write about this region: "The story of this man [Okonkwo] who had killed a messenger and hanged himself would make interesting reading...He had already chosen the title of the book, after much thought: The Pacification of the Primitive Tribes of the Lower Niger." With those lines, it is obvious that the British are just as strict about the practice of their own rituals and unaccepting of any change to their own cultural perspective.

My copy has front notes about the author and the history of African literature which I have yet to read. I'm sure that will offer more information and insight into the novel. Maybe I'll write more in this blog when I do read those.

Holidays On Ice by David Sedaris

2009-07-29T11:37:00.000-07:00

I have no idea why I picked this up to read now since it is July. I had never read anything by David Sedaris before. But I was looking for something quick to read that I could read in bits while I feed my baby. Suffice it to say that I don't have a lot of free hands while I'm feeding my baby.

And I don't have a lot of mindspace either because I have Mommy Brain. Turns out that's what you get when you are sleeping in stretches of no more than 2 to 3 hours at a time.

Rest assured though. The next book I picked up is Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart for the Fill in the Gaps Project.

Here is my full review of Holidays on Ice. I should also mention I won the book in a Hatchette giveaway along with his sister Amy Sedaris's cooking/entertainment book (which I reviewed several months ago).

Another review of The Story Sisters

2009-07-04T11:39:00.001-07:00

There's been a lot of talk about Alice Hoffman's new book The Story Sisters and the lukewarm review she received from the Boston Globe. Here's some commentary on that review (with a link to the review) on the Fill in the Gaps blog.
Another critical review of the book was posted in today's Philadelphia Inquirer. (Sorry can't link to the review online yet. It should be available on the website soon.) The review is summed up by the title, "Gorgeous prose - and way too much of it."
This reviewer makes an interesting point which I'd like to illuminate as I've heard this comment elsewhere: "After 20 successful novels, most authors don't get the editing they still need, and that seems to be the case with Alice Hoffman."
It's becoming apparent that a thorough pre-edit before submission to an editor will certainly be essential for me. Here are Moon Rat's comments on this and mine.

Writerly (and other) updates

2009-06-29T12:17:00.000-07:00

It's been a while since I've posted anything here.

I haven't read or written about anything either. Actually I'm re-reading Harry Potter. I'm in the middle of the 6th book, and I'm very excited about seeing the movie coming out in a few weeks. Hopefully I'll figure out a way to see it in the theatre before Princess Baby arrives.

On the Fill in the Gaps blog Moon Rat said that lack of desire to read comes from not wanting to absorb other people's ideas. That is true I think. I have lots of my own ideas swirling in my head, and I need to get them down on paper.

We've been busy getting ready for the new baby. Due date is July 31.
I think in a few days we will be able to say with full authority: We are ready.

Anyway, a few writerly things I wanted to mention and point out:

I'm starting a group for Philadelphia Writers on Facebook. If there is anyone in cyberspace who wants to join even though you can't meet in Philadelphia, certainly it would be straightforward to exchange manuscripts and works in progress without meeting in person. Just head to Facebook and join the group.

Saw this post this morning on Moon Rat's blog. It's about finding someone to pre-edit your novel before submitting to agents and editors. She describes her realization that manuscripts should be in nearly finished form and that writers should consider hiring an outside editor prior to submission because a lot of editors won't actually do much editing. Umm...isn't that their job title?

Then saw this piece of news from the Wylie-Merrick Literary Agency. It's a new query policy, and as of July 1 you must fit into at least one of these categories prior to querying this agent.
"A. You are a published author with credits from a legitimate,
royalty-paying publisher.
B. I’ve met you at a conference AND requested materials from
you.
C. An editor or other agent recommended that you contact me
specifically.
D. You have attended two writers’ conferences in the past two years.
Please specify the conference(s) attended, years attended, and classes/workshops
taken or presented.
E. You have written more than two novels.
F. You belong to a major national writer’s organization, such MWA, RWA,
Writer’s Guild, ITN, etc.
F. You have done something to formally educate yourself as a writer and
as a novelist in particular. Please list these activities in the
query."

**Note: I quote these directly. The two F's are from the original.

Of course, I knew it wouldn't be easy to submit anything to anyone as a first time writer. I've learned that over these past few months from Moon Rat. But still, to spell it out like this. I felt a little smacked.

100 books for Project Fill-in-the-Gaps

2009-04-05T20:12:00.000-07:00

It was hard to come up with a list of 100 books I want to read in the next 5 years.

This was a project originally started by Andromeda. I saw it first on Moon Rat's blog. Then Emily Cross started a blog dedicated to Project Fill-in-the-Gaps.

I'm going to post my list on the Fill-in-the-Gaps blog too, and I'll be following along and making updates with everyone else there.

The rules as paraphrased from Andromeda and Moon Rat are the following:
I've collected a list of 100 books that I wants to have read in my life to fill in some of my reading gaps of classics and great contemporary fiction.

Personally, I decided to make a list of books primarily written by, or about, People of Color or Women.

Like Moon Rat, I'm giving myself 5 years and a little extra, so until New Year 2015, to try to get through the list. I'm also giving myself 25% forgiveness, so if I finish 75 of these books in that time, I'll win the challenge.

I had a hard time coming up with a list of books, mainly because I probably only have time to read 20 books per year at the most, and I am not certain I want to spend all my reading time on this list. Luckily, the 25% discount will help with this. I've already realized I forgot Native Son by Richard Wright. And I know that I will hear about new books in that time that I will want to read too. Especially if we are all posting our reviews on the blog. But I'm up for the challenge!

Here's my list: (Red=Read, Blue=Started, Green=Saw the movie)
1. Things Fall Apart - Chinua Achebe
2. Anthills of the Savannah - Chinua Achebe
3. Half a Yellow Sun - Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
4. The White Tiger - Aravind Adiga
5. I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings - Maya Angelou
6. The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood
7. The Blind Assassin - Margaret Atwood
8. Emma - Jane Austen
9. Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
10. Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen
11. Mansfield Park - Jane Austen
12. The Teahouse Fire - Ellis Avery
13. Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
14. Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
15. The Good Earth - Pearl Buck
16. The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett
17. Possession - A.S. Byatt
18. My Antonia - Willa Cather
19. The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay - Michael Chabon
20. Wonder Boys - Michael Chabon
21. Jonathon Strange & Mr. Norrell - Susanna Clark
22. Waiting for the Barbarians - J.M. Coetzee
23. In the Heart of the Country - JM Coetzee
24. Disgrace - JM Coetzee
25. Life and Times of Michael K - JM Coetzee
26. The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
27. The Chocolate War - Robert Cormier
28. Nervous Conditions - Tsitsi Dangarembga
29. Dhalgren - Samuel R. Delaney
30. Times Square Red, Times Square Blue - Samuel R. Delaney
31. The Red Tent - Anita Diamant
32. The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao - Junot Diaz
33. Out of Africa - Isak Dinesen
34. The Brothers Karamazov - Fyodor Dostoevsky
35. Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
36. The Name of the Rose - Umberto Eco
37. What is the What - Dave Eggers
38. Middlemarch - George Eliot
39. Middlesex - Jeffrey Eugenides
40. The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down - Anne Fadiman
41. Birdsong - Sebastian Faulk
42. Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
43. Room with a View - E. M. Forster
44. Passage to India - E.M. Forster
45. The Corrections - Jonathan Franzen
46. Don’t Let’s Go to the Dogs Tonight - Alexandra Fuller
47. Water for Elephants - Sara Gruen
48. Tess of the Durbervilles - Thomas Hardy
49. Roots - Alex Haley
50. A Thousand Splendid Suns - Khaled Hosseini
51. Their Eyes Were Watching God - Zora Neale Hurston
52. The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
53. The Known World - Edward P. Jones
54. Metamorphosis - Franz Kafka
55. Secret Life of Bees - Sue Monk Kidd
56. The Mermaid Chair - Sue Monk Kidd
57. Immortality - Milan Kundera
58. The Unbearable Lightness of Being - Milan Kundera
59. Interpreter of Maladies - Jhumpa Lahiri
60. Lady Chatterley’s Lover - D.H. Lawrence
61. Sons and Lovers - D.H. Lawrence
62. Women in Love - D.H. Lawrence
63. One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
64. Love in the Time of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
65. Kaffir Boy - Mark Mathabane
66. Miriam’s Song - Miriam and Mark Mathabane
67. A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
68. Sula - Toni Morrison
69. Song of Solomon - Toni Morrison
70. The Bluest Eye - Toni Morrison
71. Beloved - Toni Morrison
72. A Mercy - Toni Morrison
73. Runway - Alice Munro
74. Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
75. Reading Lolita in Tehran - Azar Nafisi
76. A Bend in the River - V.S. Naipaul
77. In A Free Country - V.S. Naipaul
78. The English Patient - Micheal Ondaatje
79. The Wishing Year - Noelle Oxenhandler
80. Cry the Beloved Country - Alan Paton
81. Gravity’s Rainbow - Thomas Pynchon
82. The God of Small Things - Arundhati Roy
83. Peony in Love - Lisa See
84. Unless - Carol Shields
85. The Stone Diaries - Carol Shields
86. No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency series Books 3-10 - Alexander McCall Smith
87. White Teeth - Zadie Smith
88. Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
89. Slumdog Millionaire - Vikas Swarup
90. Walden - Henry David Thoreau
91. The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien
92. Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien
93. The Color Purple - Alice Walker
94. Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
95. Optimists Daughter - Eudora Welty
96. The House of Mirth - Edith Wharton
97. Age of Innocence - Edith Wharton
98. Native Son - Richard Wright
99. I Am Charlotte Simmons - Tom Wolfe
100. The Book Thief - Markus Zusak

HIV conspiracies

2009-03-31T20:59:00.000-07:00

My friend Amanda wrote a blog post about science mysteries here on her blog The ramblings of a hopeful artist, which gave me a great opportunity to spout off about HIV conspiracy theories and rumors in the comments.

As always, my goal in fiction and non-fiction is to open up conversations about these topics. Chime in here or there if you think this is interesting.

I've written other stuff on this topic here and here.

And here is my proposal to the MacArthur Foundation for funding to support more research and publication of fiction and non-fiction works to continue to discuss these issues.

I am submitting a grant to the NIH in May to interview patients with HIV to discuss stigma and discrimination.

And then I want to get back to writing my novel! The characters are fighting a war in Haiti in my head.

This week's Philadelphia goings-on: I heart Philadelphia

2009-03-06T19:04:00.000-08:00

Several things have been broiling in my head these past couple days. My internet connection has been down, and I have not had time to post until now. The nice Comcast employee I spoke to suggested that a squirrel might be chewing on our wires, but as the service came back stronger than ever the very next day, I actually suspect ice from our recent blizzard had somehow blocked my connection.

I had originally imagined the snow swirling in my own head might morph into several blog posts, but instead, I've written one master update on the goings-on here in our fine city.

First, has anyone seen the news about Mayor Nutter's plan to charge city residents for garbage pick-up? I believe the mayor plans to charge residents for special trash bags which will be required for city trash pick-up. Overheard my boss telling our admin assistant about this plan yesterday: "Sounds like the streets will be littered with trash." At first, I thought he was making reference to our former Mayor Street and his FBI probe.

Further our current mayor has now said that in light of necessary city budget cuts, he is considering charging a co-pay to patients who come to the city's Free Clinics for health care visits. He suggested that the charge would be $5 to $20. More threatening is that budget cuts may force closure of as many as 3 Free Clinics or the city's nursing home.

The Health Distric free clinics are supposed to be the stop-gap for anyone without health insurance. These moves will certainly strain the city's already-strained emergency departments through the city and prolong wait times even more.

The economy is hurting everywhere.

On a more positive note: This next one's in honor of our Philadelphia Phillies, winners of the 2008 World Series, who are now playing spring training baseball in Clearwater, Florida. Alas, because of my growing belly, I cannot Live Blog the games or see them in person this year. I'll have to wait for regular season, by which time I will certainly be big as a house.

So my exciting news is instead written on my laptop, in my house, in this fine city where earlier this week we had a "blizzard" of only four inches of snow. To be fair, the storm did spread varying depths of snow depending on where you were, but still. At my house, we only had 4 inches.

So really now, here's my good news: Chase Utley, sorry to say this, but you have a replacement. I have a new favorite Philadelphia Philly.

Cole Hamels.

An article in yesterday's Philadelphia Inquirer reported that Hamels and his wife are investigating the possibility of adopting a child with AIDS. His foundation is focused on building a school in Malawi. Apparently, he and his wife honeymooned in South Africa.

"In addition to enjoying our honeymoon, we got to know about Africa and its issues," Hamels said.

Cole might be a nice name for my next-born.

Here's my last Philadelphia story for now. This one isn't particularly unique to Philadelphia, but it was written by Tirdad Derakhshani, the Inquirer's writer of one of my favorite features, Side Show. Tirdad wrote an article about the increased prevalence of conspiracy theories. A fascinating topic that I have written more about here.

Tirdad says:

"...[A conspiracy theory] helps us feel that there must have been some reason or purpose behind such a tragic accident. Some find it unbearable to see the universe as ruled by a play of contingent forces. For some, what we call an accident is merely a veil that hides mysterious motives.
The metaphysical need for meaning becomes dangerous when it hides the impersonal social, political, and economic processes that help define our lives...
...Conspiracy theories, which proliferate during periods of traumatic economic and social shifts, are a real form of protest by citizens angry over a system that makes them feel small, impotent. Ironically, they end up reinforcing that powerlessness."

As an example, let's say that your government is no longer providing you the health care you need, and your ailing grandmother has been kicked out of her nursing home. The fire department in your neighborhood has closed, the library near your house where your children go to do homework after school has shortened its hours, and you have to pay to have the city haul away your trash. You might think the mayor and the city council are in a conspiracy against you.

Unless the Phillies win the World Series!

Thinking and Planning

2009-03-02T18:14:00.001-08:00

I did not get as much writing and Real Work done today as I had hoped. Because of the expectation of snow last night, all the schools in the city closed. And then we only had 4 inches of the white stuff anyway.

I did get a lot of Thinking and Planning done though.

Thinking about what the next step might be for my current novel in progress.
Planning the long list of books that I need to read before I write anymore.

Thinking and Planning can be a little dangerous for me. The problem is that I spend so much time on it that I don't get anything done. But it's always fun, and if I can't get Real Work done anyway...

Here is an annotated list of books that I have on my list so far:

Nights with Uncle Remus, by Joel Chandler Harris - started today. This is a book of African and African American folktales as told by enslaved peoples from the southern U.S. These stories were collected by the author, and "have inspired writers from Mark Twain to William Faulkner, Zora Neale Hurston to Toni Morrison" (from the book jacket). The foreward says the stories inspired tales the likes of Bugs Bunny and the Road Runner. So I say, inspire me too.

The Tales of Uncle Remus, by Julius Lester. I'm waiting for this one from my library. Sounds similar to the above including tales of Brer Rabbit, Brer Fox, Brer Wolf, and others. I also need to reread Beatrix Potter's stories.

Toni Morrison's Beloved and A Mercy. As I mentioned here, I understand A Mercy is Toni Morrison's retake on the story she told in Beloved. I have been in the middle of Beloved for a while now, and I need to get back to it. I'm looking forward to reading these so I can compare the two.

Their Eyes Were Watching God, by Zora Neale Hurston. I don't know anything about this one but the title.

Other Books by Alice Walker and Maya Angelou. I'm open to suggestions.

Some books about Africa. I'm already reading What is the What by Dave Eggers. But I need others to supplement. Again, suggestions are welcome.

And lastly, I'm waiting for a book called Motherwit: An Alabama Midwife's Story, by Onnie Lee Logan. I've been waiting to receive this book from my library for months, so I just ordered it on Amazon.

Basically, I'm just planning do-it-yourself MFA coursework in African and African American literature and storytelling. Can't wait to see how it all comes together.

Anyone know any good writing groups and/or writing workshops in the greater Philadelphia region?

James

2009-02-27T08:22:00.000-08:00

James was my Uncle Jimmy.

He was born with Down Syndrome when my grandmother was 44 years old. I think the story was that my grandmother became pregnant after her own mother died.

My grandparents raised James at home at a time when institutions were more popular. I know it wasn't easy for my grandparents or for my mother and her other brother.

Even after my grandmother died of cancer when I was in high school, James continued to be a big part of our family.

He taught me a great deal about life. Before he turned 21, all James could talk about was the beer he was going to try. On his birthday at Danny's barber shop, he took the first sip, and he spit it right back out.

His job at the local Good Will, where he worked for as long as I can remember sorting shoes and hangers, was a source of great happiness for him. He loved going to the Memorial Day parade every year.

He talked a lot about his girlfriend Melody, his dog Scruffy, his family, and friends he met everywhere. Even a person he met walking down the street would be his friend for a long time to come.

As an adult, Uncle Jimmy informed us he would prefer to be known as James.

James died of pneumonia, an old man's death, a few years ago shortly after my daughter was born.

I have chosen my pseudonym in his loving memory.

An embarrassment of riches

2009-02-21T19:53:00.000-08:00

I blogged yesterday about writer's block because I was a bit stuck for the moment on the thing I'd been sitting down trying to write all week long.

Staring at the blinking cursor. Makes me crazy.

This week I've been concentrating on my grant application. And I say concentrating, but really I've discovered that what I first need to do is unfocus my mind from the specific task and let the idea percolate through my mind for a few days. Doing other things - yoga, seeing patients, driving down the Avenue, thinking about my novel - helps me to get a grip on what the important question is, and how to progress with finding the right answers.

So I took a shower, got dressed, and went to work. I work at an inner city hospital here in Philadelphia as a family doctor.

And let me tell you that my work is the best cure for writer's block.

First of all, I drive to work down a street that is sort of a main thoroughfare with tons of houses and shopping and lots of excellent people watching. Yesterday alone, on my way to work I had an idea for a brand new story. Let me just say this, in headline format: Vampire Trauma Surgeon. Who knows where it will go?

Secondly, my work in a hospital with lots of folks who are sick or on disability or generally down on their luck makes me exceedingly grateful that I simply have a job.

And lastly, and most importantly, percolate, percolate, percolate. It's all grist for the mill. Working on one thing helps me unfocus on the other. I set aside my fiction novel in progress back before the holidays because it was feeling tired. And in the past couple weeks, I've found some great resources for folk tales to open the story, talked through the plot with several friends, and have become much more positive about where it's headed.

Now, if only I didn't need to sleep.

Top 10 things to do for writer's block

2009-02-20T06:44:00.000-08:00

1. Eat something - A pickle, ice cream, bowl of cereal, scrambled eggs chili, chicken noodle soup, left over steak frites from Rembrandt's. Anything will do.

2. Write a blog post about writer's block.

3. Log onto twitter. See what all the other twitter people are up to. Twitter is addicting, but I find it very hard to monitor what anyone is up to without being on constantly. How do you think twitter is useful to you?

4. Check my email (gmail, yahoo, and work account) for the 57,000th time.

5. Do yoga. My new favorite yoga video is Ana & Ravi's Yoga for Beginners and Beyond. I love breath of fire and that segment where Ana sings is fantastic. I emailed them this morning to see if there's somewhere I can download the music to my Ipod.

6. Check my Facebook profile to see if anyone new is following my blog. Not yet. Need to write another blog post. See #2.

7. Take a shower. I find water and the bathtub to be very inspiring. I've had some of my best ideas in the bath. Others have come to me while I'm driving in my car, but that's another story.

8. Make a cup of tea. Usually something with caffeine. My favorite for the moment is Earl Grey.

9. Catch up on my blog reader. I haven't been online for about a week so I'm behind on everything. Do you have a blog I'm not following?

10. Read a book. What are you reading now? Favorite books this year?

What do you like to do when your writing is blocked?

Grant application

2009-02-06T07:57:00.000-08:00

I want a grant from the MacArthur Foundation fellows program. The foundation fellows receive $500,000 in unrestricted "no strings attached" financial support over the next 5 years. I have previously discussed this program here.

The press release about the 2008 recipients says:

Previous MacArthur fellowship grant recipients "were selected for their creativity, originality, and potential to make important contributions in the future."

From Wikipedia:

“The Foundation does not accept applications or grant interviews. The foundation relies on anonymous nominators, who submit recommendations to a small selection committee of about a dozen people. The committee then reviews every applicant and passes along their recommendations to the President and the board of directors. The entire process is anonymous and confidential. The first time that a new MacArthur Fellow learns that he or she was even being considered is upon receiving a phone call telling him or her the good news.”

Since the Foundation's application process involves nothing more than luck, prayer, and a secret handshake, I am hereby submitting the specific aims of my MacArthur Foundation grant proposal to you, dear reader, cyberspace, President Obama, Oprah Winfrey, Santa Claus, and God.

Offers of funding from those in Hollywood, Governor Rendell of Pennsylvania, Mayor Nutter of Philadelphia, or others who are interested in my work will of course be gratefully accepted.

A more serious, focused, scientifically-sound proposal utilizing a mixed quantitative and qualitative methods approach will also be submitted to the National Institutes of Health for funding consideration.

Thank you all kindly for your attention to this matter.
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The overarching goal for this MacArthur Foundation grant is to use fiction and non-fiction publishing venues to enhance public exposure and stimulate national public conversation about the origin of medical and government conspiracy theories and these beliefs' impact on disparities in healthcare and health outcomes in the United States. More background on this topic can be found here.

The specific aims of this proposal are:

1. To write a literary fiction novel utilizing African culture and myth, medical and midwifery traditions, magic, and storytelling to follow ten generations of an African family through life in Africa to enslavement in America into impoverished freedom and oppressive lack of opportunity in the Southern United States. This novel will be submitted to mainstream publishing houses for publication.

and 2. To use quantitative and qualitative methods to examine the historical origins of medical and government conspiracy theories common to African Americans in Philadelphia and the impact of these beliefs on access to health care, use of antiretroviral therapy, and adherence to medication in African Americans with HIV infection. The data collected in this aim will be submitted for publication in medical journals and a non-fiction book written for a non-medical audience.

Conspiracy theories

2009-01-23T06:02:00.001-08:00

Note from Trixie: This post was guest-written by my soul's other half, the secret twin mind my body has engorged. I (she) and she (I) are two halves of a whole. But I am beginning to feel the two halves come together.

She is a family doctor with a medical practice in North Philadelphia. She takes care of patients, teaches medical students, and is trying to rocket launch an independent research program funded by the National Institutes of Health. She is immensely hopeful that the new administration will raise funding levels dramatically.

And this post was written with the hopes that cyberspace might have interesting feedback on her research ideas.
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My research ideas are sometimes unorthodox. The NIH would prefer I use the word novel.

I am interested in investigating the origin of conspiracy theories. Particularly those that impact on health disparities, access to healthcare, and health outcomes in patients infected with the Human Immunodeficiency Virus.

My research began during my fellowship. There I worked closely with a mentor who guided me to do fine scientific work in the methods the field uses to measure adherence to HIV medication. In the field, adherence can be defined as how faithful someone is about taking their medicines on a daily basis. More broadly, we also examine other health outcomes, for example, how regularly a patient returns to the pharmacy to pick up his prescriptions, how often the patient comes to see the doctor, and other healthy parameters like these.

These parameters (or health outcomes) are poorly impacted by the presence of certain specific conspiracy beliefs. Prior research by a group in California has shown that subjects who believe that AIDS was created by the government are less adherent to their prescribed HIV medicines.

To the lay person who is not infected with HIV, this may seem downright ludicrous.

I can hear what you are thinking. If you have an infection that can be treated with a medication, why would you avoid taking the medicine?

A person who doesn't take medicine to treat HIV and AIDS will DIE! Right?!

But a great deal of evidence has shown that those types of messages and scare tactics don't improve adherence. And in most cases, scolding a patient about poor prior adherence makes things worse.

On the other hand, increases in trust in the doctor and the health system seem to improve adherence. And the presence of conspiracy beliefs about medicine, the government, and healthcare poorly impact on health outcomes.

It has puzzled researchers and doctors for years why there are large racially-based health disparities in the United States and in other parts of the world. Lots of people believe that this must be largely related to poverty.

But this is not entirely the case.

Specifically, my data (and lots of other data) has shown that levels of adherence are not related to income at all. People with higher incomes and more money still have impediments to taking their medicine on a regular basis.

In other words, even if we control for income and other factors that are used to measure poverty, there are still large unexplained disparities in health outcomes so that black people are sicker with poorer outcomes than people who are white.

Little research has been done to understand the conspiracy beliefs and their impact on health outcomes so far. And most of what has been done has outlined the scientific basis of what I've written above.

I am interested in a much earlier part of the series of events that lead up to these poor health outcomes.

I would like to examine the historical context from where these conspiracy beliefs come. More specifically, I would like to conduct interviews with subjects who endorse this type of beliefs to understand their knowledge about and reaction to events in this country's history: the Tuskeegee syphilis experiment, assassinations of African American civic leaders and leaders with history of support for African Americans, lynchings, and even slavery.

If our government, federal or local, can allow or purport these types of events, how can we not believe they would be capable of making a virus to systematically...

I will stop there mid-sentence to strongly emphasize that I do not believe the government has manmade the HIV virus or intentionally infected anyone with HIV or purposely withheld medication based on racial prejudice.

I am simply trying to outline an argument that a person could make in endorsing the possibility of this type of event.

Amends need to be made on a grand scale. I'm talking about apologies that need to come from our federal government that funded historic research projects, like the Tuskegee syphilis experiment.

National conversation about all of these tragic events in our country's history must be stimulated. We all need to talk about these things in a very public way that opens the door to greater understanding of each other.

As I said before, my ideas are sometimes unorthodox. I have hope that now is the time we can begin what will be a long process of healing.

*References and data are available upon request.

Villa d'Este

2009-01-23T05:43:00.000-08:00

I'm still posting photos from our trip to Rome, Italy.

We visited Villa d'Este in Tivoli just outside the city of Rome. This was one of my favorite places to practice speaking Italian.

I took this photo of the villa gardens. The villa was built as the summer home of a Roman cardinal around the turn of the Renaissance. This photo shows a small part of the extensive gardens and fountains that were the highlight of the villa.

Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban by J.K. Rowling

2009-01-22T19:05:00.000-08:00

I finished the third book in the Harry Potter series again last week.

As we get further into the series, we find how meager Harry's upbringing with his unsupportive aunt and uncle has been. We already know Harry has lost his own parents tragically when he was just an infant. Harry asks for support from his friends at Hogwarts, the Weasley children and their wonderful parents, his friend Hermione, and a few generous teachers at the school. And as it turns out, the titled Prisoner is Harry's godfather, Sirius, and he becomes a support person for Harry as well.

There are only a few people Harry can ask who know what happened to his parents on the fateful day they were killed by Voldemort after being given up by their Secret Keeper, and we all, including Harry, find out the real story in this book. And, as usual, the real story is suppressed, the bad guy gets away again, and Harry and Voldemort both survive to fight another battle in the next installment.

Apart from this truth about his parents, Harry does not ask for much more. He is a fearless Quidditch player, taking great risk to win a match to catch the Snitch as the Gryffindor team's Seeker. He will go to great lengths to help his friends, risking his life and his own freedom for his friends and the other students at Hogwarts, always sneaking out of the dormitory after lights out, magicking a perfect silver Stag to fight off the dementors, and even fighting Voldemort or his supporters, all expert Dark Wizards, himself.

In my re-reading of The Prisoner of Askaban I was struck by the amount of courage Harry shows throughout the series, how quickly he learns difficult magic, and his unquestioning ability to simply do the right thing even when it is really difficult. In this book, he and Hermione come up with a brilliant plan to save two lives with the help of Hermione's time turner.

We should all have that kind of courage, that kind of desire to do something to make life easier for another living being, and that satisfaction Harry gets from surviving another day to fight another fight in the neverending struggle between good and evil.*

*Incidentally, Harry also gets a lot of satisfaction from eating Bertie Bott's Every Flavor jelly beans. I would like to try them too, but I would stay away from the ones that taste like ear wax.

Beach Travel Book

2009-01-21T18:11:00.001-08:00

I was invited to participate in a new meme started by Strumpet from Strumpet's Life. Sounds like it should be an interesting idea to talk about each month. She has suggested that each month we will post on the theme of a book and travel. I do love to travel and read about travel, and I certainly love to write about it too. Sounds perfect to me!

Here's her suggestion for this week:

"We review books, and stuff in WoW all the time, and I KNOW you all travel
at least a LITTLE bit sometimes.
So, every third Wednesday of the month (a random day I didn't find
associations with another meme) I thought we could blog about a book and travel
in some way.
This first week's theme is:
what book do you most associate with the beach and why?"

I love going to the beach, and we spend a lot of time at the beach each summer, and I almost always take a book with me. I say almost always because there were times when my daughter was younger that it took both me and my husband to watch her as she raced straight into the ocean. She is now getting to the point where she doesn't need quite as much attention.

So hopefully this summer I will have more chance again to read at the beach.

It is hard for me to pick just one book as I think about the beach.

I have always been a voracious reader, and the first book I remember reading at the beach, probably when I was no more than ten years old, is Harriet the Spy. So now every time I think of that book, I remember reading it at the beach, cold from getting out of the water, lying on my stomach on the family beach blanket, with a towel covering me.

More recently, I spent the weekend at the shore right after 9-11. That weekend, I remember reading Dave Eggers' A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius. For some reason, I can vividly recall reading his book and wondering what he was thinking and doing in the aftermath of 9-11.

This past summer, before I started this blog, I read a book called La Cucina on the beach. It was a quick little book about a woman who uses her cooking to emote and express her feelings, sort of a more sensual Like Water for Chocolate. Parts of it were very mysterious, and it left the reader feeling uncertain of what was truth and which events happened only in the storyteller's mind.

After I read a book, I am often left with an impression of that book based not only on the specific themes of the book itself, but also depending upon where I was and what I was doing surrounding the time when I read it.

I'm looking forward to posting more about books and travel! Thanks, Strumpet!

Tiramisu

2009-01-17T20:18:00.000-08:00

Author's Note: This one belongs in the category of photos of food and photos of my wedding in Italy. This was originally published on Oenoteca on October 2.
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Five years ago, my husband and I were married in a small Tuscan hilltown called Certaldo. This gorgeous tiramisu was our wedding cake.

We have tried and tried to find a replica, but have not been successful. If anyone has a restaurant or bakery suggestion, I'd be happy to try it.

How do you say tampon in Italian?

2009-01-17T20:11:00.000-08:00

Author's Note: I originally published this blog posting on Oenoteca on September 28. I just love telling this story.
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Turns out I speak more Italian than I thought.

The man at the cafe just outside of Villa d'Este in Tivoli, Rome was impressed that I asked "Vorrei una pizza Margherita" (or "I want a pizza with mozzarella and tomato"). I usually try to at least start off a conversation in the native language of a country I'm visiting.

He then went on to ask me where I was from. It always helps that the Rocky movie was filmed here. Everyone has seen the part when Rocky finishes his run from South Philadelphia by running up the steps of the Philadelphia Museum of Art. And we get treated with respect. Not like the man in the hotel restaurant in Rome who ordered a hamburger.

But I didn't know quite how to start the conversation with the housekeeping staff in the hotel when I needed a tampon. It was a little awkward. I started with words like "donne" (women) and tried to fit in some Spanish. I could deliver a baby or talk to you about your heart attack in Spanish. But not in Italian. At least I knew how to say my room number - "dieci ottantotto" - because when we returned from dinner, there they were. Two sanitary kits.

I heart Chase Utley!

2009-01-17T20:06:00.000-08:00

Author's Note: I originally published this posting on my blog I Heart Philadelphia on November 1, the day after the Phillies' ceremonial parade down Broad Street in Philadelphia when they won the World Series.
I re-post it here because I really do heart Chase, but also in honor of the Eagles game tomorrow.
E-A-G-L-E-S - Eagles!!
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I heart Philadelphia and the Philadelphia Phillies.

And I heart Chase Utley!

In fact, if my daughter had been born a boy, her name was going to be Chase.

So when I saw this video of yesterday's ceremony on YouTube, I had to post it here.

Can you bring home one last piece of sushi in a to go bag?

2009-01-17T20:00:00.000-08:00

Wasabi doesn't go very well with Pinot Noir.

How do you pronounce Hokka Hokka? I guess you can call them on the phone and see how they answer. We used to get pizza at a place called Jioio's near Pittsburgh, and that's what we did.

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Author's Note: This was also originally published August 20 on Oenoteca. I like taking photos of food.

Sonic Boom

2009-01-17T19:54:00.000-08:00

There's something about eating in your car. Eating 5 million calories worth of Sonic burger, french fries, and a root beer float. Yum. Kinda makes you want to go play water polo where they swim an average of 2 miles per game.

------------------

Author's Note: This posting originally appeared on my other blog Oenoteca on August 20. It was written during the Olympics.

It's funny how irrelevent some of my older posts are now. I just like this photo of me eating a hamburger in my car. Weird, I know.

Upcoming changes to my blog

2009-01-17T18:59:00.001-08:00

I have a question for my readers. Any comments or suggestions will be greatly appreciated.

I currently have 3 blogs of my own. Each of them has a slightly different theme. Of course this one is about books and writing. One of the others is about Philadelphia and a few thoughts I've had about our city. The third is more random - some photos of food and my travels.

But the last two blogs are pretty sparse, and hardly anyone reads them. (I have to insert here that I am grateful for all my readers! You know who you are!)

But I am considering merging my three blogs into one. What I plan to do is republish the earlier postings from the other two smaller blogs onto this blog, which has really been my main outlet for creativity. I hope that the thoughts I've put on the other two blogs really add something to what I already write on here.

It is just so hard to maintain 3 blogs actively, and I'm not really looking for a separate group of readers on the other 2 blogs anyway. And, in addition, I will continue to post my book reviews on 5 Squared, so of course anyone who is simply interested in that can just go there (as they do already, I'm sure!)

Any thoughts?

Thanks again for reading. I will post this to the other 2 blogs as well to see if I get separate comments there.

Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets by J. K. Rowling

2009-01-10T18:52:00.000-08:00

I originally purchased Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets in a bookstore in London when I was in medical school. My medical school here in Philadelphia offered a month-long rotation at London's St. Christopher's Hospice working as a nurses' aide, doing all the things nurses' aides typically do.

And so, the first time I read the second Harry Potter book, I was on an overnight ferry travelling from London to Dublin, Ireland for Easter weekend.

I thought I had read CoS once or twice since then, but still, most of the details of the story were unfamiliar on this reading. Suffice it to say that I did remember where the chamber was located, who opened it, and with what instrument, but I won't spoil the details here. I didn't remember the specific events leading up to that or how it played out. I did remember that Harry speaks snake, but that has been a theme throughout the other HP books. Otherwise, much of the details of the book felt unfamiliar to me.

I guess the story somehow paled in comparison to my first trip to Europe in which my friend and I spent a month in London at the hospice helping care for dying patients and another month travelling around the continent to Portugal, Spain, England, Ireland, Wales, Scotland, France, and Switzerland. I read the third Harry Potter book on the way back to London from Dublin, so I'm sure that will feel unfamiliar as I read it again as well.

Harry Potter and Star Wars

2009-01-03T18:59:00.000-08:00

So as I've mentioned, I've started re-reading the Harry Potter series. And last night, my husband was watching Star Wars Episode 1, the first movie in the more recent prequel series.
First, as I was reading the HP series the first time, and I was telling the story to my husband as I went along (he has never read it, but he has seen some of the movies), we discussed the parallels in the HP series to the Star Wars movie series. He was convinced by the middle of the series that Voldemort must somehow be Harry's father, but of course, that did not turn out to be the case.
So last night, I found myself having difficulty watching certain parts of the Star Wars movie because they were so sad. Particularly, I find the part where Anakin Skywalker is leaving his mother behind on Tatooine hard to watch. As I know where the series is headed, and that he will not ever see her alive again, I find it hard to watch. (I do hope I'm not giving away any spoilers for anyone reading this.)
Now, I will say that I love the third movie in the prequel series. I find the part of the movie where Anakin turns into Darth Vader so fascinatingly evil. And the Star Wars movies are so satisfying for so many other reasons - the politics, the love story, the story of good vs. evil, not to mention the effects, the characters, and the costumes. (I just love all the costumes the Queen gets to wear with all her updos and headdresses.)
I think the reason why I find the Star Wars story tugs at my heartstrings more than Harry Potter is because in the HP series, we don't actually get to know Harry's mother Lily on her own as an individual character before her death. In fact, Harry doesn't get to know his mother as an individual either (other than a few scattered memories of her) because she dies when he is so young.
There are many parallels between HP and Star Wars. Both Anakin and Harry lose their mothers. Both Anakin and Harry are thought to be the strongest force against evil. But I always come back to the question of why Anakin chooses the Dark Side, and Harry does not. I think it has to do with the age at which they lost their mothers. Since Harry was only an infant and has so few memories of his mother (he thinks his parents died in a car accident leaving him with his lightening-shaped scar), and never really knew his mother before her death, he is less scarred by her loss than Anakin. Of course Anakin also fears that he will lose Padme because of premonitions that he hears, but Harry has similar fears of losing Ginny that don't come true. And Anakin has already begun his transformation to the Dark Side before Padme dies in childbirth with the twins.
Anyone else have any thoughts?

Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone by J. K. Rowling

2008-12-31T13:43:00.000-08:00

I asked for and received copies of the first three Harry Potter books in hardcover for Christmas because I did not have them. After I had read the first three books initially, I bought my own copies of 4 through 7 immediately when they were available.

In any case, I have already reread the first book Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone this week.

I was surprised at how unfamiliar parts of the story were for me. I did not remember really at all how the story had started, how Harry realizes his own abilities as a young wizard, and how difficult it was for him to leave his adopted family. It was almost as if I had never read the book before when, in fact, I believe I had actually read it at least twice previously.

I also did not remember where Voldemort was hidden or the exact events of the recapture of the Sorcerer's Stone or many of the events surrounding the Quidditch matches or what happened with Snape. Really, as I said, I did not remember many of the important events that happened in this first story.

I do remember the excitement of knowing another book by J.K. Rowling was coming along soon and that I would get to find out more about Harry and his friends. This time, though, it's even more exciting, because now I already have all seven books sitting on my shelf right next to me!

Books I received as Christmas presents

2008-12-30T18:16:00.001-08:00

As mentioned in my last post about books I gave for Christmas this year, I also received several books as gifts.

The Teahouse Fire, by Ellis Avery is a love story about a French orphan taken in by a Japanese family who are experts in Japanese tea ceremony. It is set in the late-nineteenth century during the westerization of Japan. This is, of course, in a similar theme to my earlier posting about my obsession with China. I also think it could be a potential selection for the Travel the World From a Comfy Chair group on Book Blogs.

Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell, by Susanna Clarke. Amazon reviews say this is a British drawing room comedy with a taste of English folklore and fantasy which "has the cleverness and lightness of touch of the Harry Potter series." Sounds good to me.

A Mercy, by Toni Morrison. I understand this is Toni Morrison's retake on the story she told in Beloved. I am in the middle of Beloved, and I'm looking forward to reading this so I can compare the two. More details to follow in 2009.

Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, and Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, by J.K. Rowling. I have Books 4 through 7 on my shelf, but I did not have the first three. In the past few days, I've already reread Book 1. My review will be posted soon.

Books given as Christmas presents

2008-12-29T15:05:00.000-08:00

This year I decided to try to give mostly books for Christmas. Here is the eclectic group of books I found to give away to most everyone on my list:

For my brother, a long distance runner who is back in training again - What I Talk About When I Talk About Running, by Haruki Murakami. Amazon says this is a collection of essays, diary entries, and life lessons from running. This book was my longest shot as to whether the recipient would enjoy it. My brother didn't seem sure either. I'll borrow it when he is finished.

For my dad who likes mysteries and whodunits - The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson. I was fascinated by the story of the author himself, who died shortly after submitting the third book in this trilogy to his publisher. This is the first book in the series, and I hope to borrow it back from my Dad when he is finished reading.

For my best friend's daughter - Where the Sidewalk Ends, by Shel Silverstein. My daughter and I love to read this collection of poems at bedtime, and I thought our friends would too.

For my sister in law - Hello, Cupcake! byAlan Richardson and Karen Tack. This book has a ton of photos of really cool-looking decorated cupcakes. I thought it looked like a lot of fun. I hope she makes cupcakes for my niece's first birthday.

For my brother in law - Invisible Frontier: Exploring the Tunnels, Ruins, and Rooftops of Hidden New York. He lives in New York, is fascinated with photography, and asked for this book for Christmas. Apparently, it includes photos of lots of abandoned buildings and hidden secret places in NYC and how to take them.

For my husband who is an architect, a book about his favorite architect, Le Corbusier: A Life, by Nicholas Fox Weber. This book also came recommended by the Inquirer's architecture critic, Inga Saffron (who I just learned on Amazon was previously the newspaper's Moscow correspondent and herself wrote a book called Caviar: The Strange History and Uncertain Future of the World's Most Coveted Delicacy).

Coming up: my posting that lists the books I received for Christmas.

Bill Bryson's African diary by Bill Bryson, Jenny Matthews, and CARE International

2008-12-29T10:53:00.000-08:00

Bill Bryson's African diary is a quick book about Bill Bryson's one week trip to Kenya with folks from CARE International.
In the book, Bryson describes his week-long journey to Kenya, in which he visits a slum in Nairobi, a Somali refugee camp near Kenya's border with Somalia, and many other areas of the country in between where CARE projects have helped to improve the living conditions of impoverished communities.
CARE International's process is to go into an impoverished area and teach an individual or a community how it can better help itself. For example, Bryson describes a bank system where women are able to borrow money in order to grow a small business. This allows them to make their own money and pay back the original loan. In another example, CARE built a water pump in the center of a community, which made irrigation and obtaining water for daily chores much easier for the community. What is unique about this project is that they organized a group of locals who were taught how to fix the pump to be responsible for maintaining the pump for the future. A farmer who was taught new farming techniques, which allowed him to increase the size of his farm greatly, was expected to teach his newfound knowledge to other local farmers.
This was a quick read. In fact, I read it in about 20 minutes while sitting in my car. That fact does not take away from the importance of the work CARE does in impoverished parts of the world. In addition, all proceeds from sales of the book go to the non-profit organization.
For more information about CARE International, go to http://www.care.org/.

New books I bought recently

2008-12-08T13:29:00.000-08:00

I recently went to the bookstore and bought several new books. I told myself (and the store clerk, as I can never keep any of my thoughts to myself) that I was stimulating the economy. Buying books for gifts and holidays to help stimulate the economy was originally a suggestion of Moon Rat in this post.

I have already reviewed some of these books and will review others soon, so in some cases I will just provide links to my reviews in this post. The rest I will give a brief summary review.

The Tales of Beedle the Bard by J.K. Rowling - my review is here.

Pinkalicious by Elizabeth and Victoria Kann - I bought this book for my daughter, but then my best friend bought it for her too, so I ended up giving our copy to her daughter. Briefly, this is the delightful story of a little girl who eats too many pink cupcakes and ends up turning pink herself. The doctor very smartly suggests that she eat lots of green vegetables and foods to turn herself back to her normal color and self.

The Lump of Coal by Lemony Snicket, is an unusual holiday tale about a lump of coal that dreams of being an artist. He seeks and finds the answer to his dreams when he is given as a stocking stuffer to a boy who is an artist himself.

If I Ran the Zoo by Dr. Suess - I read this book to my daughter when we borrowed it from the library. I always love Suess's rhyming scheme and alliteration and always find myself talking that way to my husband if I have read a book by Dr. Suess at bedtime. I purchased this copy as a gift.

Scrambled Eggs Super - I have never read this Suess book, but I purchased it as a gift.

The Lorax by Dr. Suess - Hard to believe that I have never read or heard this book read even though it was read every year on Earth Day when I was in college. It is on our list to read soon.

Creativity in the cold

2008-12-08T08:43:00.001-08:00

I find myself hoping that writing in the cold makes you more creative.
Our house has two temperature zones: it is cold downstairs and very warm upstairs.
So I am writing upstairs, in the playroom, right next to the radiator.
We have a little couch to sit on in the room, but there are no tables or other furniture nearby. My legs are propped on a big purple bouncy ball, my cup of tea is resting on top of the flat surface of a toy cash register, and my lunch is propped on a play table with animals and instrument sounds.
Luckily, the yogurt is not heavy enough to push the buttons that make the lights flash or the bells whistle.

I Like You, by Amy Sedaris

2008-12-04T07:51:00.000-08:00

A big thank you to Hatchette Books for sponsoring several blog giveaways for a 5 pack of holiday books. I was the winner of one of the sets of books hosted by Lesa at Lesa's Book Critiques.

I Like You, Amy Sedaris's new book on "Hospitality under the Influence" is a gorgeous book which gives lots of tips on how to be a better party host and attendee. It is full of color pictures of food, cakes and cupcakes, arty projects, and other interesting things (like the four page spread of Amy putting on her nylons, the multiple photos of her wearing said nylons, and several very witty projects made from nylons) that make the book's pages eye-catching and endearing.

I found this book to be nothing short of hilarious.

While Amy does say in her introductory letter to her readers that "This is not a joke cookbook," it is in fact, a cookbook full of jokes.

One caveat about the book is that Amy (who was previously seen on Comedy Central's Strangers with Candy and is David Sedaris's sister) does pepper the book with some vulgarities, mainly references to kinky sex and use of alcohol and drugs. Some may construe these to be offensive. And I would certainly not buy this book for your pre-teen niece who is learning how to cook. For that sort of gift, I would instead recommend Rachael Ray's new cookbook Yum-O! The Family Cookbook (which I have not yet read or reviewed).

I had originally intended to give this book away to my best friend, who is a hostess extraordinaire herself, but now I will actually have to go buy another copy for her.

Bad news/Good news

2008-12-01T19:58:00.000-08:00

NaNoWriMo ended yesterday, and I finished the month with a total word count of only 9265. So I didn't win this year. That's the bad news.

Good news is that I'm still writing, and today I added another 3000 words to finish up the day at 12,265. I feel like I'm really getting into the story, and I like how it is developing. I do realize I still have a long way to go on the first draft.

Not to mention all the edits it will need. There are glimmers of good writing and a few great ideas I like in there. But I think I'm going to need a chisel to find them when this first draft is done.

The planets are starting to aline

2008-11-21T06:08:00.000-08:00

For those of you who are following me on NaNoWriMo, it may seem like I'm not doing very well.

I've written a grand total of 9,265 words towards my goal of 50,000.

I'll admit that I have been wishing they would call it NaShoStoWriMo, but that doesn't roll off the tongue very easily.

I think I've been spending too much time thinking about what I will say when I meet Oprah Winfrey and not enough time writing.

But I still feel like I'm making great progress. I've gotten started. I have a storyline laid out. And I know where I'm heading with the story and what I want to do with it. I really do appreciate all the good wishes and cheers I've received from readers of my blog.

So overall, I'm very excited.

Couple of events this week have made me feel like the planets are starting to aline.

Readers may remember that I mentioned in the comments section of one of my posts that I had to take both God of Small Things and The Wishing Year back to the library.

Well, both books have shown up on Bookmooch, and I've successfully mooched both of them. So I will be getting back into reading them and reviewing them soon.

And I've found some great African mythology books and the book below at my library.

I'm looking forward to getting into those. I think they will really contribute to the development of the story I'm writing. And you, dear readers, can certainly look forward to that.

I won!

2008-11-21T05:50:00.001-08:00

I am so excited because I never win anything!
I won the Hatchette Holiday Entertaining book giveaway on Lesa's Book Critiques.
So that means Hatchette will be sending out my copies of the following books:

1. The Flavor Bible By Karen Page , Andrew Dornenburg

2. Katie Brown Celebrates, by Katie Brown

3. I Like You: Hospitality Under the Influence, by Amy Sedaris

4. Festivus: The Holiday for the Rest of Us, by Allen Salkin

5. Holidays on Ice, by David Sedaris

Sounds like I'll have some new ideas for entertaining this holiday season!!

Happy NaNoWriMo!

2008-11-10T11:55:00.000-08:00

I'm getting in on the game late. But better late than never.

For those who don't know, November is National Novel Writing Month! I've signed up on the NaNoWriMo website.

Here is my page on the website. I've even pasted in an excerpt.

You can follow my progress with the word count feature. Right now, I'm at 1761/50000. So I'm more than 1/50th of the way there!

36 books in the mail!

2008-11-10T07:34:00.000-08:00

My friend sent me a chain letter in the mail.

If you continue the chain by forwarding the letter on to six friends and sending a book to one of her friends, you will receive 36 books in the mail.

Is anyone interested?

Let me know in the comments, or email me if you are interested, and I will forward it on to you.

Book Giveaway: The Revenge of the Rinellis

2008-11-08T10:18:00.000-08:00

Here's my second of two book giveaways!!
If you are interested, let me know in the comments section.

The Revenge of the Rinellis: Crisis in Paradise, by K. Lynch

From the book jacket:
"Carol Lindsey-Berneau thought the island of Berneau was a safe place to raise her son--a world away from the violent past she left behind on the mainland. Unfortunately, greed knows no boundaries. And when a member of a notroious New York crime family discovers Carol's unwitting connection to a massive money-laundering scam, he wants in on the action.
Now, a plan to kidnap Carol's young son, Jason, reveals the face of pure evil--and threatens to tear the close-knit nation apart. And as a powerful hurricane bears down, Dr. Jack Eisner confronts his greatest challenge yet: keeping the island's governor--the kidnapped boy's stepfather--alive. Surviving it all will require them to summon every ounce of courage while taking some shocking risks that could hasten disaster.
The captivating third entry in K. Lynch's dramatic series, The Revenge of the Rinellis blends an edge-of-the-seat crime thriller with dead-on medical drama and steamy romance."

Book Giveaway: The Other Side of the Horizon

2008-11-08T10:05:00.000-08:00

I'm holding my first two book giveaways.
If you are interested, let me know in the comments section. I'll hold a drawing for the winner.

The Other Side of the Horizon, by K. Lynch

From the book jacket:
"Dr. Jack Eisner has a reputation for saving lives. So when the emergency-room physician goes home from Blakemore General Hospital one night after treating a particularly tough Level III trauma case, he chalks up yet another "save." But some problems take time to show themselves. And when the patient dies a short while later, hospital administrators blame Dr. Eisner, pointing to an apparently foolish error. Now, amid hospital recriminations and threatened lawsuits, Dr. Eisner--still smarting from a painful breakup with his beloved Sophia--makes a break with civilization, piling his life into a 1950s sailboat and setting off for wherever the wind takes him. It's a journey that will bring him face to face with his own mortality as he confronts a slew of threats, from monstrous storms to menacing Cuban police patrols on the high seas. Meanwhile, a young defense lawyer is discovering Dr. Eisner might not be at fault for the tragedy. Can the accused stay alive long enough to see his name cleared?"

Michael Crichton

2008-11-05T18:27:00.001-08:00

I'm sad to hear that Michael Crichton died on Tuesday.

Here is an epitaph and review of his books from the New York Times.

Bookmooch and a random song

2008-11-04T17:50:00.001-08:00

I have just joined Bookmooch. Seems like a great concept and a good way to trade books.
But I shipped my first book today, and it seems like it could get pretty expensive for the shipping.
Anyone have any suggestions on how to save money on shipping?
Do you ship first class, or is there a less expensive book rate?

*******

Now for the random part:
Today I picked my daughter up from preschool, and said "Take my hand" as we crossed the street.
Suddenly that old song from the album Free to Be You and Me by Marlo Thomas and Friends came into my head.
The refrain goes "Take my hand, come with me, where the children are free, come with me, take my hand, and we'll run...To the land where the river runs free, to the land with the shiny sea, to the land with the free country, to the land where you and me are free to be you and me."
Now I can't get it out of my head.
Does anyone else remember this record?
I wonder if you can get it anywhere?!

Books I'm reading now

2008-11-01T19:52:00.000-07:00

Once again, I'm in the middle of a few books... And I haven't finished the last 3 I started.

I started reading The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy, but I'm finding it to be hard to follow and slow.

I also started to read The Wishing Year by Noelle Oxenhandler. This is a fascinating read. Along the same lines as The Secret, this book takes you into the lives of several women as they try to attract good things into their lives. I'm wishing and wishing hard.

And lastly, I started to read this book the other night. It's about the Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment. This book describes the medical experiment which was conducted in the southern United States from the 1940s until the 1970s as medical scientists followed the natural history of syphilis in African American men from whom Penicillin treatment was withheld.

Tag

2008-10-19T18:41:00.000-07:00

Amanda at The ramblings of a hopeful artist has tagged me for a meme where you're supposed to write 7 things about yourself.

I don't much like to write about myself here, but oh well. Here goes.

1. I have lived in Pennsylvania my whole life except for the 4 years I went to college at the University of Delaware. And in fact, some people think Delaware is really a suburb of Philadelphia.

2. I'm a physician. I have a part-time family medicine practice in North Philadelphia.

3. I have a master's degree in clinical epidemiology. I do research on adherence to HIV medicine and have recently submitted my master's thesis paper for publication consideration. I have two other papers published in medical journals.

4. I am interested in medical and government conspiracy theories (eg., AIDS was created by the government) and their impact on access to healthcare.

5. I would like to write a novel. I have a couple brewing, but one is hot in my head right now. It is set in the mid-twentieth century southern United States during the time of the Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment. If only I had more time to write.

6. I am obsessed with Africa and would like to go there some day.

7. I was married in Tuscany, Italy in 2003. My husband and I recently returned to visit and took lots of pictures. I do have more pictures I need to post and blog about soon. Stay tuned.

So then on with the tagging. Here are the rules:

Write up 7 things about yourself, link back to the person who tagged you, link to 7 others to pass the game along, and then go leave them comments and tell them you've tagged them.

I'm not sure I know 7 others well enough to tag them, but here we go:

First the 4 Trishes:
Trish at Hey Lady! Whatcha Readin'

Trish at Trish's Reading Nook

Tricia from Library Queue and who founded Book Blogs on Ning

Patricia from Patricia's Vampire Notes

Then 3 other friends:
Sarah at Books and Other Miscellany

Bethany at B&b Ex Libris

Iliana from bookgirl's nightstand

And lastly, but not leastly, I'm tagging an extra for fun. It's unfinishedperson from Just a (Readin') Fool even though I know darn well he hates memes and (probably) won't respond. As one of the only male book bloggers I've met, it just makes me too darn curious not to tag you.

Have fun, my friends!

The Host by Stephenie Meyer

2008-10-13T19:44:00.001-07:00

Apologies to those who read 5-Squared too. I am posting this review here again for those who do not. (Thanks Bethany and Trish!)

The Host was one of the most fast-paced, gripping books I’ve read in a long time. From the moment I started reading the book, the story drew me right in.

The story takes place on Earth after the human race has been largely taken over by a race of alien invaders who are souls living as parasites inside other beings’ bodies. The souls’ main desire is to enjoy life as it happens on the invaded planet, and they completely take over the human life they have invaded. The main character, the Wanderer, is the soul who has taken over the body of a woman named Melanie. She has lived on nine different planets herself, and she has been called as a professor who teaches others about the Souls’ history. She is, therefore, well-aware of the difficulty of living in the human body on Earth: the overwhelming emotions, the excessive violence, sensory overload. The Wanderer’s biggest difficulty is adjusting to the presence of Melanie’s still-vivid mind in the body with her. Melanie shows Wanderer vivid memories of her brother Jamie and Jared, a man she loved, and other members of the family who may still be left as humans, and with that, the Wanderer is drawn in to the search to find them.

The story is largely a love story – some reviews call it a love triangle with only 2 bodies, or even a love quadrangle. Nevertheless, it is romantic and powerful, and the story asks the reader to question what it is that attracts two beings to each other.

I found her description of two of the characters most interesting for they give a glimpse into what it means to love and live as a human. Ian and his twin brother Kyle have opposing personalities in the story. Kyle has lost his love when her body is snatched by the souls, and his anger is violent as he looks to deal out punishment. His twin brother, Ian, is the gentler of the two, and it is his character that I fell in love with myself. The two brothers’ stories tell of the triumph of love over all else, and this is clearly Meyer’s message and her justification for all the sour parts of life as a human.

The Wanderer tells vivid stories about other parallel planets where the alien invaders have settled: the Spiders, the Flowers, the Dolphins, the Bats, the See Weeds: all nicknames derived on Earth for the beings they resemble. I do wish Meyer had told even more story about the invasion, the Origin of the species, and life on the other planets. A review on Amazon says “Readers intrigued by this familiar-yet-alien world will gleefully note that the story's end leaves the door open for a sequel--or another series.” I wholeheartedly agree and hope Stephenie Meyer will write more.

Trixie bares her soul

2008-10-09T19:21:00.000-07:00

My story begins some 20 years ago, when we were in high school.

It couldn’t have been that long ago, could it? Good God, we’re old.

I remember the exact moment when I chose the path of my life. We were in 9th grade. I had decided to take a sewing class. I realized quickly there were few boys in that class and dropped out after the first day of class to sign up for a science elective instead.

There were many boys in the science class. And that was the turning point.

We went to Gnimocemoh with these boys. I remember we had dinner at ChiChi’s. I was so hot back then I could tie a knot in a cherry stem with my tongue. Or maybe I was just really nerdy. I had chosen to take a science elective instead of a sewing class because of a boy, after all.

The first time I realized this was truly a choice I had made and not just a schedule change came when I was a freshman at Delaware. I was walking on campus and caught sight of a woman a couple years ahead of me. She was wearing a long skirt and shoes like ballet slippers. I was probably wearing a long skirt too with some kind of cloggy green and black shoes I was known to wear back then. Anyway, I recognized her. There was no way she knew who I was. She was the lead in one of the plays showing on campus at the time. And I imagined she must be an English major or a theatre major or pursuing some kind of liberal arts degree. I lugged my huge back pack, green to match my shoes, and full of chemistry and calculus books, and my fate was sealed.

I smelled the banana ester on my hands and rushed off to organic chemistry lab where we would test unknowns until we could identify their chemical makeup.

I imagined she was on her way to run lines, off to take a yoga class, or going to read in a coffee shop.

I still think about that other path, the one I might have gone down had I stayed in the sewing class. If I had been my own person or taken more art classes or realized back then that that boy would never return my crush.

The choices she and I both made led us down two different life paths. And truly, I have no regrets. If I had it to do all over, I would make the same choices.

I went to medical school. I finished residency. I am a family doctor.

But sometimes now, I want that other path, and I still want to be that other woman, if only briefly.

Books I'm in the middle of

2008-10-08T18:43:00.000-07:00

As always, I'm blogging too much and not reading enough.

Right now, I'm in the middle of a few things. Here's my current reading list:

This book has really lush prose. When I started reading it awhile ago, I was in the middle of a few other books.
Then my mom borrowed it from me and read it.
Now my book club is reading it for this month. I have to finish this one.

Instead I picked this one up and started it today. So far it is really good.
Different from anything I've read in a long time. This is the one I'm going to actively read right now.

And I'm still reading this one. Started it a few weeks ago, but I really need to take my time with this one. It is a difficult book to read. Reviews on Goodreads make it sound like it will make me cry. I'm looking forward to getting through it, but I think I need something lighter first.

JAMA's White Cover: so much grist for the mill

2008-10-06T10:00:00.001-07:00

The Journal of the American Medical Association - A review of the White Cover issue from August 6, 2008

The White Cover issue of JAMA (and no, I'm not talking about the Beatles here) is a biennial theme issue about the HIV/AIDS epidemic signified by "A cover without art."

This is the issue from August, and so I am just as behind in my reading for work as I am in the reading I do for my blog. When I came back from Italy, this issue was somehow still at the top of the huge pile of mail on my desk. Either it had been lost in the mail, or someone had borrowed it while I was away. But there it was, just waiting to be read.

Since I never really said what I would read and review for this blog, and I want to continue to discuss something a little different here, I thought I would review this recent issue of JAMA.

I promise that reading this review will be no different than reading a review of a non-fiction book. I won't get into the details of the replication of the HIV virus, except to say that it is a cunning, ever-changing, wily virus that has thus far defied science's attempts to create a vaccine to prevent infection or to manufacture an effective antidote to eradicate the virus.

I won't discuss theories on when to start treatment, or how to decide what combination of medicine to use to treat HIV infection. Suffice it to say that the latest guidelines are available for reading in this issue of JAMA.

There are several points I want to make with this review.
The first relates to the movie idea I talked about in a post a few weeks ago.

Life is funny. You never really know how things are going to end up. We make choices and a series of serendipitous events lead us down the paths of our lives. In the end, it seems to me there is very little except chance that separates our circumstances from those of our neighbors.

In this issue of JAMA, Kimberly D. Manning talks about her own hesitancy to get tested for HIV. The CDC now recommends that everyone be tested annually (more often than this theme issue is released) regardless of perceived risk factors. Very few people can be completely confident that their results will be normal because as she counsels her low risk patients "It only takes one time." Her patient assumes that as a physician she must get tested frequently, but in reality, as humans, we have all made choices that make it difficult to be so confident in the results that the test itself becomes irrelevant.

Point 2: The HIV epidemic is far from over. This point has been made more eloquently by many others. But in this issue of JAMA, H. Irene Hall and her colleagues have estimated that approximately 50,000 to 60,800 new cases of HIV infection have occurred in the United States each year for 2003 to 2006. This annual number of new infections is higher than experts previously estimated. Worldwide, the numbers are even more staggering with an estimate of more than 30 million people who are currently infected with the HIV virus.

The infection disproportionately affects populations that are marginalized, setting the stage for stigma, fear, and disparities in healthcare. In the United States, the epidemic disproportionately affects African Americans and men who have sex with men.

In the rest of the world, the African subcontinent is heavily affected. A quarter of people in Botswana, Lesotho, and Swaziland are infected. More than one in 8 people are infected in Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa, Zambia, and Zimbabwe (Source: 2008 Report on the global AIDS epidemic, UNAIDS/WHO, July 2008).

Early in the epidemic, Hollywood was vocal about the impact the wave of infections had had through the creative community. With the changing faces of those most affected, many who are now infected with the virus quietly suffer with smaller circles of contacts, and less opportunity to fight for change.

In her editorial entitled, The Past, Present, and Future of AIDS, June E. Osborn, MD says this:
"Those individuals who lived through the early years will never forget the decimation of marginalized communities, the inexorable loss of young lives and creative talent, and the rapid emergence of a generation of orphans with only grandparents to care for them. But those memories may have been rejected as hyperbole by new generations that followed." She concludes with this statement: "The medical and scientific communities must not be blinded by hubris or future generations be allowed to minimize or deny the threat--for there will not ever again be a world without AIDS."

I would add that the creative community - writers, actors, and artists - continues to be in a position to tell the story of those who cannot tell it themselves.

What's the IT?

2008-10-06T08:00:00.000-07:00

First, an apology.

I'll be the first to admit that this blog has taken a turn somewhere. I'm not really quite sure where the turn happened.

But, knowing myself as well as I do, I was trying to leave a little room for the turns I was sure would come. In the title itself, I was never particularly clear what the IT was about. And I've been vague about myself. As bloggers, we can probably all say "Reads and writes in Hometown, State."

I started off as a book blog, reviewing books. Then I found a new place to post book reviews on 5-Squared. I haven't posted any reviews myself there lately, although I am planning to post a few soon. I think the key to reading 5-Squared is to make sure you don't miss the conversations in the comments section. I have found all of them to be immensely enlightening.

But enough about apologies.

If you're reading this, I'm sure you know what you've gotten yourself into.

I've decided today to write a post reviewing a recent issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association. Keep reading...

MacArthur Foundation grants

2008-10-03T07:11:00.000-07:00

This year's MacArthur Foundation genius grants have been announced. The foundation seeks to fund creative individuals from a variety of fields.

The fellows receive $500,000 in unrestricted "no strings attached" financial support over the next 5 years.

Wouldn't that be nice.

Recipients this year include:

an astronomer designing experiments and devices to advance understanding of the geometry of the universe and the story of both its beginning and its end (Adam Reiss);
a neuroscientist tracing the natural interactions of differentiating neurons, bringing us closer to developing effective methods for treating central nervous system damage (Sally Temple);
a novelist exploring the circumstances that lead to ethnic conflict in works inspired by events in her native Nigeria (Chimamanda Adichie);
an inventor of musical instruments that transform and transcend the musical experience and navigate the boundaries between live and recorded sound (Walter Kitundu);
an urban farmer applying low-cost technologies to the cultivation, production, and delivery of healthy foods to underserved urban populations here and abroad (Will Allen);
a geriatrician transforming treatment for the seriously ill into more humane and effective care (Diane Meier);
an optical physicist demonstrating that power can be transmitted wirelessly, opening the door to the possibility of a range of devices operating free of traditional power sources (Marin Soljačić);
a saxophonist drawing from a variety of jazz idioms and the music of his native Puerto Rico to create complex, accessible sounds that overflow with emotion (Miguel Zenón);
a critical care physician devising life-saving, clinical practices to improve patient safety in hospitals and spare countless lives from the deadly consequences of human error (Peter Pronovost);
a structural engineer restoring cathedrals and other structures of the distant past and identifying ancient technologies for use in contemporary constructions (John Ochsendorf);
a stage lighting designer pushing the visible boundaries of her art form with painterly lighting that evokes mood and sculpts movement in dance, drama, and opera (Jennifer Tipton);
an anthropologist illuminating the intellectual and emotional life of ancient Mesoamerican peoples through insightful interpretations of hieroglyphic inscriptions and figural art (Stephen Houston).

What a fascinating group of people to get to know.

Under More on MacArthur, the Foundation says: "In addition to selecting the MacArthur Fellows, we work to defend human rights, advance global conservation and security, make cities better places, and understand how technology is affecting children and society."

Fantastico Italia

2008-09-28T20:25:00.000-07:00

A word on where I've been:

Italy.

http://oenoteca.blogspot.com/

Dreaming big

2008-09-12T22:03:00.000-07:00

Unless you saw my monologue in our senior class dinner theatre show, "I Know I Saw Gypsies," you might not think I am capable of such extravagance.

Frankly, my dear, I might have to agree with you.

My vision is a movie, about North Philadelphia, filmed locally with local talent. It's the story of 2 women, both born and raised in this neighborhood of poverty, violence, and what could be called the epicenter of the HIV epidemic in Philadelphia. Their diametric stories -- one is a doctor, the other addicted to drugs -- quickly intertwine. Ultimately, it is an unpredictable story of redemption, showing that things are never as simple or straightforward as they seem.

And I'd like to throw in a few song and dance numbers ala Scrubs, but we'll have to see about that.

Why would anyone want to do this?

Well, I can only speak for myself. I would like to bring greater attention to North Philadelphia and its issues.
I fear that if a disaster like a hurricane or (more likely) a flu epidemic were to hit Philadelphia, North Philadelphia would be devastated much like New Orleans.
(As a side note: Did you know that Charity Hospital in New Orleans has never reopened after Hurricane Katrina?)

And even if no greater attention were paid to North Philadelphia, wouldn't it be damn good fun to make a movie?!

I did notice on Facebook that my old friends are now successful with experience in a variety of industries. Yes, this means you, Apple, Fox, and Lucasfilms. And I would also rely on my new friends with experience in publishing, marketing, media, and dreaming big.

Not to mention my friends Zach Braff, Kevin Smith, and Tina Fey. I'm looking to you guys for funding.

Lao-Tzu and the Te-Tao Ching

2008-09-12T21:08:00.000-07:00

I am up late tonight looking for a wedding photo I wanted to use for a project.

I couldn't find the cd with our wedding photos, but instead I came across an old copy of Lao-Tzu's Te-Tao Ching. I'm not sure how this came about, but I vaguely remember hearing it suggested that this was a book you could open to a random page and you would find a passage that was appropriate for your circumstances.

So that's what I did, and here's what I found:

From Lao-Tzu's Te-Tao Ching, Chapter 29
For those who would like to take control of the world and act on it--
I see that with this they simply will not succeed.
The world is a sacred vessel;
It is not something that can be acted upon.
Those who act on it destroy it;
Those who hold on to it lose it.

With things--some go forward, others follow;
Some are hot, others submissive and weak;
Some rise up while others fall down.
Therefore the Sage:
Rejects the extreme, the excessive, and the extravagant.

And I was just about to write an extravagant post about the screenplay I want to write.

Patience...

What are you waiting for?

2008-09-03T19:50:00.000-07:00

I had pledged to myself that I would not buy any new books until I finish reading all the ones that are already in my house.

Then I gave in and started reading books from the library, books that I found in my mother's house, books that just fell into my lap.

Now I have met a new author on Facebook, and I have completely broken my pledge.

I was taken by the cover art, by the book jacket materials, by the author's website, and by the story the author herself has to tell. And I have actually bought and paid for her book on Amazon.

Now I'm just waiting for it to arrive by Super Saver Shipping.

From Christine's website at http://www.christineson.com/:

Off the Menu, written by Christine Son, tells the story of "three, high achieving women whose lives have been shaped by expectations — of their parents, of their peers, of each other, of themselves. Yet, despite their outward successes, they yearn to follow the dreams of their hearts, which don’t match the images they’ve created for themselves. In a sense, the story is about me — a former, big firm lawyer who dreamed of becoming a fiction writer — and perhaps it’s about you, too. Maybe not the lawyer-writer part, but the tension between what is and what might be."

And her story does speak to me. Well really it shouts in my ear, saying "WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR?" If she can write a novel nights and weekends, then so can I.

Booking Through Thursday

2008-08-28T06:07:00.001-07:00

Here's the question from Deb at Booking Through Thursday:
"If you’re anything like me, one of your favorite reasons to read is for the story. Not for the character development and interaction. Not because of the descriptive, emotive powers of the writer. Not because of deep, literary meaning hidden beneath layers of metaphor. (Even though those are all good things.) No … it’s because you want to know what happens next?
Or, um, is it just me?"

I just love a good story. I love a story that opens well, develops with plot twists and turns, and has an ending that is unlike what I expected. I particularly like a story that stays with me, one that I retell to myself again and again in my mind.

Here are some examples of good storytelling that I have read that have stuck with me:

And this one:

And from the quintessential story teller himself:

I have just started reading this one, and if her other book is any evidence at all, then this will prove to be a good story as well:

--------

And speaking of good stories, following are links to two good stories in progress.

At http://mypalsplendidman.blogspot.com/ Will Jacobs and Gerard Jones present My Pal Splendid Man, the comedic tale of a writer and his superhero friend who travel through time to try to save a library. The best part is that the story will continue to develop as the authors write it!

And at http://edandjohnny.blogspot.com/ is Will and Gerard's story Million Dollar Ideas, about Ed and Johnny. I love nothing more than to read a developing story in chapter installments!

As Deb says, "it’s because you want to know what happens next."

My obsession with China

2008-08-26T19:19:00.000-07:00

One of the best books I've read this year:

It gives a fascinating description of the process of foot binding, but there is so much more to the story than that.

Here is a fascinating website with pictures that show Chinese women with lotus feet.

Such beautiful shoes. It makes me want to read more about the historical basis of the foot binding process. The remarkable thing is that women would continue this ritual on their own daughters to bring them up in the world, to increase sexual appeal, and improve their matching status.

And then there was this book about Chinese women entertainers, prostitutes and their madams.

Now this book was about a peasant boy growing up during the Cultural Revolution, when he was unable to read books by authors like Balzac. Quite a different story.

There's a story I need to tell here somewhere.

A female mob

2008-08-26T18:59:00.000-07:00

What would the mob be like if it were run by women as a matronly sorority passed down through generations from mother to daughter.

Instead of killing, a woman scorned would spread nasty gossip, steal another woman's man, trick her into buying a knock off shoe.

Business deals would take place while shopping, not over cards and backroom pool games.

Sex in the City meets the Godfather.

Or at least that's how I imagine it.

What do you think?

Dave Eggers

2008-08-20T18:33:00.001-07:00

I had forgotten how much I like Dave Eggers until I came across this reference to him on Goodreads.

I'm not sure why I was so impressed by his memoir A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius. Maybe it was because I was reading it on 9/11.

And I am about to read his book What is the What an autobiography about Valentino Achak Deng from Sudan.

Then I came across McSweeney's, the literary magazine he edits, and found the content is hilarious including this letter from Santa (written by Sam Johnson and Chris Marcil) and timely (10 Things You can Do For Sudan).

New goal: to be published in McSweeney's.

The Alchemist

2008-08-12T21:45:00.000-07:00

The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho

My review

rating: 5 of 5 stars
The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho is a story of a Spanish boy shepherd who sells his sheep so that he can travel to the Pyramids on a journey to find his Personal Legend, the treasure that awaits him if he follows his heart. On the way, he finds love, desert, an alchemist, war, the wind, and God.

I found this book to be a delight, an easy read. It is a parable about the travels we all make to find our true calling.

In this story, I was reminded that it is the seeking that matters, not the end goal or result. What we see and the people we meet along the way are the things that make life enjoyable.

“Every second of the search is an encounter with God,” the boy told his heart. “When I have been truly searching for my treasure, every day has been luminous, because I’ve known that every hour was a part of the dream that I would find it. When I have been truly searching for my treasure, I’ve discovered things along the way that I never would have seen had I not had the courage to try things that seemed impossible for a shepherd to achieve.”

Recently in following my heart down a new pathway, I have discovered magic on my own journey. In the first few chapters of a friend’s book I discovered a character with my grandmother’s name. My grandmother has been a muse to me, a spirit guide I talk to for comfort, for direction, for answers. When I listen to my heart, it is my grandmother’s voice I hear. And now, she is an omen, a sign that I am heading in the right direction.

View all my reviews.

Introducing Oenoteca

2008-08-08T20:08:00.000-07:00

I wanted to introduce my new blog Oenoteca a blog about wine, travel, and other musings. Thanks for reading!

Last Comic Standing

2008-08-07T18:30:00.001-07:00

I know I'm funnier than Iliza Schlessinger.

Review: Three Cups of Tea

2008-08-01T19:24:00.000-07:00

I just finished reading Three Cups of Tea by Greg Mortensen and David Oliver Relin. I found the book inspiring in part because of the citations I have listed here.

The book describes mountain climber Greg Mortensen's stumble into a small village in Pakistan after failing to summit K2 in the Himalayas to discover there is a great need for schools to educate the children of Pakistan. He says that he finds his passion and inspiration for this work in the eyes of the children who remind him of his own children at home in Bozeman, Montana and the desire to bring less advantaged children more opportunity.

I was reminded early in the book of the work of Paul Farmer, a physician who does humanitarian work in Haiti, among other places. Greg Mortensen is an emergency department nurse who worked shifts and slept in his car early in the story to support his climbing adventures, and later uses his own money to support his work and travel to Pakistan. His primary goal is to develop relationships as an individual human being trying to make life easier and brighter for future generations.

On the three cups of tea from the book's title, his comrade Haji Ali says “The first time you share tea with a Balti, you are a stranger. The second time you take tea, you are an honored guest. The third time you share a cup of tea, you become family, and for our family, we are prepared to do anything, even die…” “You must make time to share three cups of tea.” As Mortensen says, “Haji Ali taught me to share three cups of tea, to slow down and make building relationships as important as building projects. He taught me that I had more to learn from the people I work with than I could ever hope to teach them.”

The memoir follows Mortensen's work in Pakistan through 9/11 and the war in Iraq. As he watches CNN news from Baghdad, his friend comments that "The enemy is ignorance. The only way to defeat it is to build relationships with these people, to draw them into the modern world with education and business." By sharing three cups of tea with people in small villages throughout Pakistan and later Afghanistan, Mortensen is able to forge relationships and to break down barriers to build schools to educate the children.

Mortensen, on educating women – “Once you educate the boys, they tend to leave the villages and go search for work in the cities,” Mortensen explains. “But the girls stay home, become leaders in the community, and pass on what they’ve learned. If you really want to change a culture, to empower women, improve basic hygiene and health care, and fight high rates of infant mortality, the answer is to educate girls.” One of the first girls educated in the first school Mortensen built in Korphe continued on in her education to study maternal health care.

Mortensen is inspired to do this work not to fight terror, but rather to offer children "a bright enough future that they have a reason to choose life over death." He builds his secular schools where other public options are lacking and the only alternatives are religious schools called madrassas. Kevin Fedarko from Parade Magazine says, "Mortensen's approach hinges on a simple idea: that by building secular schools and helping to promote education--particularly for girls--in the world's most volatile war zone, support for the Taliban and other extremist sects eventually will dry up."

I was thrilled by the descriptions of hiking in the Himalayas as I am an avid armchair mountain climber. Mortensen also takes inspiration from Sir Edmund Hillary and attends a dinner for the American Himalayan foundation at which Sir Hillary spoke (and Mortensen meets his wife Tara). Hillary says, “I have enjoyed great satisfaction from my climb of Everest. But my most worthwhile things have been the building of schools and medical clinics. That has given me more satisfaction than a footprint on a mountain.”

And here is a link to Bethany's post with links to sites you can go to for more info, to donate, and to do more.

And to justareadingfool's review.

Here's Tricia's review.

Three Cups of Tea

2008-07-31T06:03:00.000-07:00

I found Three Cups of Tea by Greg Mortensen and David Oliver Relin incredibly inspiring. Here are a smattering of quotes and citations from the book that begin to explain why:

The book cites another book entitled, Ancient Futures, by Helena Norberg-Hodge, about her time spent living for 17 years in a region cut off from Pakistan - "[P]reserving a traditional way of life in Ladakh-extended families living in harmony with the land-would bring about more happiness than "improving" Ladakhis' standard of living with unchecked development." "In Ladakh I have learned that there is more than one path into the future and I have had the privilege to witness another, saner, way of life-a pattern of existence based on the coevolution between human beings and the earth." pgs. 111-112

Page 120- "Norberg-Hodge admiringly quotes the king of another Himalayan country, Bhutan, who says the true measure of a nation's success is not gross national product, but "gross national happiness." On their warm, dry roofs, among the fruits of their successful harvest, eating, smoking, and gossiping with the same sense of leisure as Parisians on the terrace of a sidewalk cafe, Mortensen felt sure that, despite all that they lacked, the Balti still held the key to a kind of uncomplicated happiness that was disappearing in the developing world as fast as old-growth forests."

Mortensen attends a dinner for the American Himalayan foundation at which Sir Edmund Hillary spoke. Hillary says, “I have enjoyed great satisfaction from my climb of Everest. But my most worthwhile things have been the building of schools and medical clinics. That has given me more satisfaction than a footprint on a mountain.”

Page 136 – “It may seem absurd to believe that a “primitive” culture in the Himalaya has anything to teach our industrialized society. But our search for a future that works keeps spiraling back to an ancient connection between ourselves and the earth, an interconnectedness that ancient cultures have never abandoned.” – Helena Norberg-Hodge

About the title of the book, pg. 150 –
Haji Ali - “The first time you share tea with a Balti, you are a stranger. The second time you take tea, you are an honored guest. The third time you share a cup of tea, you become family, and for our family, we are prepared to do anything, even die…” “You must make time to share three cups of tea.”
Mortensen – “Haji Ali taught me to share three cups of tea, to slow down and make building relationships as important as building projects. He taught me that I had more to learn from the people I work with than I could ever hope to teach them.”

“No human, nor any living thing, survives long under the eternal sky. The most beautiful women, the most learned men, even Mohammed, who heard Allah’s own voice, all did wither and die. All is temporary. The sky outlives everything. Even suffering.” – Bowa Johar, Balti poet, pg. 198

Page 209, on educating women – “Once you educate the boys, they tend to leave the villages and go search for work in the cities,” Mortensen explains. “But the girls stay home, become leaders in the community, and pass on what they’ve learned. If you really want to change a culture, to empower women, improve basic hygiene and health care, and fight high rates of infant mortality, the answer is to educate girls.”

Mortensen attends the viewing of Mother Teresa’s body after her death.
“Let nothing perturb you, nothing frighten you. All things pass. God does not change. Patience achieves everything.” – Mother Teresa, page 225

And page 227, as Mortensen paraphrased from Mother Teresa – “What we are trying to do may be just a drop in the ocean, but the ocean would be less because of that missing drop.”

In February 1999, in the Oregonian, outdoor writer Terry Richard concluded about Mortensen, “It’s something to think about the next time you ask: What difference can one person make?”

Working Motherhood

2008-07-20T11:30:00.000-07:00

Below you can view my review of a book called The Ten-Year Nap by Meg Wolitzer. I read this in the spirit of getting together with my girlfriends at our book club.
It reminded me of a fundraiser I helped organize last year for my daughter's daycare center.
We hosted Miriam Peskowitz, the author of The Truth Behind the Mommy Wars to come speak to us about motherhood and work.
I would like to extend an open invitation to Miriam if she would be interested in an author interview either here on my personal blog or on my new group blog 5-Squared.
I have tried to find her online, but now that she has co-authored The Daring Book for Girls, she is much harder to contact.

The Ten-Year Nap by Meg Wolitzer

My review

rating: 3 of 5 stars
The Ten-Year Nap by Meg Wolitzer was a book that a friend from one of my book clubs chose as our July read. I found it to be enlightening but depressing at times.

Sometimes I get tired of all the talk about working moms and moms who are home with their children. So when it came time to go to the book club meeting, I stayed home with my daughter instead! I wasn't completely finished with the book at that point, and I was stuck in a part where the women were all disgusted with their choices, regardless of what choices they had made. And at that point, I found the self-centeredness of many of the characters tiresome.

But as I continued to read the book, I thought to myself about how self-centered I am at times too. As a mother who works full-time outside of my home, I am sometimes jealous of those who have the (what seems to be from my side of the fence) luxury of staying home to play with their children. The book helped me to realize (as I have realized over and over) that no matter what choices we make, there are always ups and downs and even sideways.

I particularly enjoyed the interaction the women had with the men in their lives as it characterized accurately the struggle we all go through as men or women - both work and homelife can be tiresome at times. It is the quiet joys of both parenthood and work that make life worth that struggle.

In the end, it is the relationships we have with other people and being grateful for what we have (instead of always wishing for what we can't have) that make life so rich and satisfying.

View all my reviews.

Tuesday Thingers

2008-07-08T18:41:00.001-07:00

Here is the blog starter for Tuesday Thingers from the Boston Bibliophile:
Since we're past the Fourth of July and the summer season has officially started, what are your plans for the summer? Vacations, trips? Trips that involve reading? Reading plans? If you're going somewhere, do you do any reading to prepare? Do you read local literature as part of your trip? Have you thought about using the LT Local feature to help plan your book-buying?

My husband and I are planning a trip to Italy in the next few months to celebrate our wedding anniversary.
We were married in a town called Certaldo, Italy. We are planning an anniversary dinner back at the same restaurant where we were married. I do have to say that our wedding dinner is the best meal I have ever had.
So I have been doing quite a bit of reading to figure out where we are going to stay, what we are going to eat when we get there, and what we will see. I like to use Rick Steves and Karen Brown because each has such different focus for their travel recommendations. What travel authors do you prefer?
Our trip is centered around Rome. I have never been there before, and there are so many sites to see while we are there. The Vatican, all the museums, restaurants, and of course all of the ancient sites.
My husband studied abroad in Rome while he was in school. So of course, he has plenty of suggestions for where we should visit. What suggestions do you have?
One of my favorite books I have read about travelling in Rome is Eat, Pray, Love.

Of course, those of you who have read it know that there is so much more to this book (yoga, meditation, etc.) Nevertheless, the author's attitude about approaching a local to ask "where is the best restaurant in town", and going into that restaurant to order the chef's speciality is extremely exciting to me. Actually, what I plan to do is to use this book as a travel guide, and eat in the restaurants she ate in, to order the food she ate! Not to mention all her references to gelato. I love gelato!
And who can travel to Rome without thinking about Dan Brown and his book Angels and Demons?

I understand that there are likely to be a variety of opinions about this book, but let's consider it as a primer for sites to visit while we are in Rome. So many architectural wonders!
My husband is quite the oenophile. So we are thrilled at the idea of touring wineries in the area we are travelling. We stopped at a few wineries in Chianti country when we were there two times already, so we are looking for something a little different. We have a few free days somewhere on the road between Rome and Certaldo and would welcome suggestions for places we might visit. We are thinking we might stop in Orvieto but haven't decided for sure yet.
Any suggestions you might have would be more than welcome.
I look forward to hearing more from you about your travels this summer!

Review: A Short History of Tractors

2008-07-07T18:11:00.000-07:00

A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian by Marina Lewycka is the story of two sisters, their elderly, recently widowed father, and a Ukrainian emigre woman named Valentina. Historical details about war-torn Ukraine and the development of the tractor are interwoven through the story of how these people come together and eventually separate.
I enjoyed the sparse details explaining the history of post-war Ukraine and wished this part of the book developed further. I did not enjoy the parts of the story describing the abuses Pappa received from many of the other characters in the story.
I enjoyed the growing relationship between sisters Nadezhda and Vera, and the development of a kind of understanding between them. When they are united together against a common purpose, they are able to forge some understanding of each other: first the older sister understands her sister's livelihood as a sociologist, not a social worker, and the younger sister begins to understand the traumas her family had survived. And not only does her family survive, but they go on to raise a family, garden, and go to work every day.
And I enjoyed the truth of a man who had suffered many indignities throughout his life and still had the desire to salute the sun.
In sum, this is the story of a family, each alone with their own lives who, despite it all, come together to toast "the triumph of the human spirit."

Other reviewers: Bethany and Tricia
Let me know if you have a review of this book posted, and I can link to it!

Tuesday Thingers

2008-07-02T12:55:00.000-07:00

Here is my list of books, as suggested by The Boston Bibliophile for this week's Tuesday Thingers.

Here is the Top 100 Most Popular Books on LibraryThing. Bold what you own, italicize what you've read. Star what you liked. Star multiple times what you loved!

1. Harry Potter and the sorcerer's stone by J.K. Rowling (32,484) *
2. Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (Book 6) by J.K. Rowling (29,939) *
3. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (Book 5) by J.K. Rowling (28,728) *
4. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (Book 2) by J.K. Rowling (27,926) *
5. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (Book 3) by J.K. Rowling (27,643) *
6. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (Book 4) by J.K. Rowling (27,641) *
7. The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown (23,266) *
8. The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien (21,325)
9. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (Book 7) by J.K. Rowling (20,485) *
10. 1984 by George Orwell (19,735)
11. Pride and Prejudice (Bantam Classics) by Jane Austen (19,583)
12. The catcher in the rye by J.D. Salinger (19,082)
13. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee (17,586)
14. The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald (16,210)
15. The lord of the rings by J.R.R. Tolkien (15,483)
16. The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini (14,566) **
17. Jane Eyre (Penguin Classics) by Charlotte Bronte (14,449)
18. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon (13,946)
19. Life of Pi by Yann Martel (13,272) ***
20. Animal Farm by George Orwell (13,091)
21. Angels & demons by Dan Brown (13,089) *
22. Brave New World by Aldous Huxley (13,005)
23. Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte (12,777)
24. One Hundred Years of Solitude (Oprah's Book Club) by Gabriel Garcia Marquez (12,634)
25. The Fellowship of the Ring (The Lord of the Rings, Part 1) by J.R.R. Tolkien (12,276)
26. Memoirs of a Geisha by Arthur Golden (12,147) **
27. The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger (11,976) *****
28. The Two Towers (The Lord of the Rings, Part 2) by J.R.R. Tolkien (11,512)
29. The Odyssey by Homer (11,483)
30. Catch-22 by Joseph Heller (11,392)
31. Slaughterhouse-five by Kurt Vonnegut (11,360)
32. Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky (11,257)
33. The return of the king : being the third part of The lord of the rings by J.R.R. Tolkien (11,082)
34. Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury (10,979)
35. American Gods: A Novel by Neil Gaiman (10,823)
36. The chronicles of Narnia by C. S. Lewis (10,603)
37. The hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy by Douglas Adams (10,537)
38. Lord of the Flies by William Golding (10,435)
39. The lovely bones : a novel by Alice Sebold (10,125)
40. Ender's Game (Ender, Book 1) by Orson Scott Card (10,092)*****
41. The Golden Compass (His Dark Materials, Book 1) by Philip Pullman (9,827)
42. Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch by Neil Gaiman (9,745)
43. Dune by Frank Herbert (9,671)
44. Emma by Jane Austen (9,610)
45. Frankenstein by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley (9,598)
46. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (Bantam Classics) by Mark Twain (9,593)
47. Anna Karenina (Oprah's Book Club) by Leo Tolstoy (9,433)
48. Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell by Susanna Clarke (9,413)
49. Middlesex: A Novel by Jeffrey Eugenides (9,343) read part of
50. Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West by Gregory Maguire (9,336) read part of
51. Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov (9,274)
52. The Silmarillion by J.R.R. Tolkien (9,246)
53. The Iliad by Homer (9,153)
54. The Stranger by Albert Camus (9,084)
55. Sense and Sensibility (Penguin Classics) by Jane Austen (9,080)
56. Great Expectations (Penguin Classics) by Charles Dickens (9,027)
57. The Handmaid's Tale: A Novel by Margaret Atwood (8,960)
58. On the Road by Jack Kerouac (8,904)
59. Freakonomics [Revised and Expanded]: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything by Steven D. Levitt (8,813)
60. The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint Exupery - (8,764)
61. The lion, the witch and the wardrobe by C. S. Lewis (8,421)
62. A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle (8,417)
63. Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman (8,368)
64. The Grapes of Wrath (Centennial Edition) by John Steinbeck (8,255)
65. Little Women by Louisa May Alcott (8,214) *
66. The Name of the Rose: including Postscript to the Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco (8,191)
67. The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne (8,169)
68. Moby Dick by Herman Melville (8,129)
69. The complete works by William Shakespeare (8,096)
70. Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies by Jared Diamond (7,843)
71. Me Talk Pretty One Day by David Sedaris (7,834)
72. The Poisonwood Bible: A Novel (Perennial Classics) by Barbara Kingsolver (7,829) ***
73. Hamlet (Folger Shakespeare Library) by William Shakespeare (7,808)
74. Of Mice and Men (Penguin Great Books of the 20th Century) by John Steinbeck (7,807)
75. A Tale of Two Cities (Penguin Classics) by Charles Dickens (7,793)
76. The Alchemist (Plus) by Paulo Coelho (7,710)
77. The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath (7,648) ***
78. The Picture of Dorian Gray (Barnes & Noble Classics Series) (Barnes & Noble Classics) by Oscar Wilde (7,598)
79. The Elements of Style, Fourth Edition by William Strunk (7,569)
80. Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez (7,557) *** read part of
81. The Subtle Knife (His Dark Materials, Book 2) by Philip Pullman (7,534)
82. Atonement: A Novel by Ian McEwan (7,530)
83. The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoyevsky (7,512)
84. The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd (7,436)
85. Dracula by Bram Stoker (7,238)
86. Heart of Darkness (Dover Thrift Editions) by Joseph Conrad (7,153)
87. A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess (7,055)
88. Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra (7,052)
89. The amber spyglass by Philip Pullman (7,043)
90. A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (Penguin Classics) by James Joyce (6,933)
91. The Unbearable Lightness of Being: A Novel (Perennial Classics) by Milan Kundera (6,901)
92. Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse (6,899)
93. Neuromancer by William Gibson (6,890)
94. The Canterbury Tales (Penguin Classics) by Geoffrey Chaucer (6,868)
95. Persuasion (Penguin Classics) by Jane Austen (6,862)
96. Anansi Boys by Neil Gaiman (6,841)
97. The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova (6,794)
98. Angela's Ashes: A Memoir by Frank McCourt (6,715)
99. A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius by Dave Eggers (6,708) ***
100. The Prince by Niccolo Machiavelli (6,697)

Huh, I haven't read nearly as many as I thought I had. So there's more books to add to the TBR pile.

My favorite books of all time

2008-07-01T18:48:00.000-07:00

You didn't think I could write that last post and leave the tickler without actually following up on it, did you?

My favorite books of all time (in no particular order):

The Eight by Katherine Neville

The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger

Anything by Nick Bantock (Griffin and Sabine, Sabine's Notebook, The Golden Mean, etc. I have read them ALL, there are 9 in the Griffin and Sabine series, plus I've read many of his other books)

Anything by Richard Bach (One, Jonathon Livingston Seagull, and Illusions, my favorite was The Bridge Across Forever: A True Love Story)

Ender's Game, Speaker for the Dead, and Xenocide by Orson Scott Card

I'm quite sure there are others, but that is all I have for the moment.

The Eight Part 1

2008-07-01T18:27:00.000-07:00

So a little background is necessary here:
When I was in college a long time ago, my roommate Tammy told me about this book called The Eight by Catherine Neville.
Now, mind you, we were all science majors and major nerds, and so when she told me there was this book that had puzzles and involved chess and intrigue and mystery, well, that sounded exciting to me.
So I read The Eight. And this was more than 12 years ago.
And ever since then, I have considered The Eight to be (one of) my favorite books of all time (which is a category which likely deserves it's own blog post). Remember, this was more than 12 years ago.
Anyway, recently Sarah Solter at Books and Other Miscellany posted a review of the book on her blog. Which I managed to catch because she commented on my Booking Through Thursday post. So I had to comment back.
Her point (I think - please Sarah correct me if I'm wrong) is that The Eight is not as good as The Da Vinci Code. My point is that The Da Vinci Code has the benefit of being written later and I am quite sure that Dan Brown has read and was inspired by The Eight. (Although really I have no idea what Dan Brown reads.)
So now Iliana has asked for my thoughts about the book. I guess I'm going to have to find a copy to reread so I can actually make some more intelligent comments than "Wow, I really liked it."
What did you think of The Eight? Let's talk about it some more!
Happy reading, everyone!

Cheesecake

2008-06-27T19:55:00.001-07:00

My hubby just had a birthday and this is the cheesecake I made for him!

Suggested reviews?

2008-06-26T19:19:00.000-07:00

Hello readers of my blog:
Please browse my Shelfari shelf by clicking on next below the shelf to see if there is any book about which you would enjoy reading a review. Let me know!

Booking through Thursday

2008-06-26T18:20:00.000-07:00

Yeah! It's Thursday and here's Booking Through Thursday for this week:

THE QUESTION: What, in your opinion, is the definition of a “reader.” A person who indiscriminately reads everything in sight? A person who reads BOOKS? A person who reads, period, no matter what it is? … Or, more specific? Like the specific person who’s reading something you wrote?

So I think a reader is someone who spends their free time reading whatever they can get their hands on. I wouldn't necessarily go so far as to expect a "reader" to read the shampoo bottle or the toilet paper package, but when you have recently purchased toilet paper made by Seventh Generation (You are making a difference TM) with quotes from the Great Law of the Iroquois Confederacy that says "In our every deliberation, we must consider the impact of our decisions on the next seven generations," it certainly does pass the time. Really, I was curious what post-consumer toilet paper would feel like. Who knew they would have such thought-provoking reading material on their packaging. Not I.

I do, however, tend to read whatever and whenever I can: the newspaper, blogs about anything, scientific and statistical manuals, letters and diaries, novels...I could go on and on.

I have always been a reader. And I tell you that it is refreshing to find a community of friends who must all consider themselves readers, by whatever definition they choose.

Books to read for July

2008-06-26T17:59:00.000-07:00

My July list is getting very long. We'll see how far I get since I've only read and reviewed one and a half books (plus a children's book) this month so far.

To be read:

ARCs

The Korean Palace of Honolulu by Linda Mi-Suk Enos

Revolution by Alex Tamayo-Wolf

For my book club:

The Ten Year Nap by Meg Wolitzer

To catch up with last month's reads for my book club:

Angus, Thongs, and Full Frontal Snogging

The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho

And I have yet to find our August book. I don't think it's out yet? Anyone heard of it?

The Godmother by Carrie Adams

New books

2008-06-26T17:49:00.001-07:00

In the mail today, I received not one, but two, advance review copies of new books. The first one, Revolution by Alex Tamayo-Wolf is pictured here. According to the advance press, it's "a historical love story set in Vienna" about "the tangled lives and ill-fated love of a young winemaker's daughter and a wealthy villa owner" and that "the novel deals with tuberculosis, mental illness and child prostitution."

The second one is hot off the presses and not even found on Good Reads. In fact, my copy is a semi-edited 8 1/2 by 11 version. It is called The Korean Palace of Honolulu by Linda Mi-Suk Enos. "This Korean Drama is loosely based on true life experiences of bargirls Mina, Jana, Suki, Naiomi, Mimi, and Tina that takes place in the '70s and '80s. See the world through their eyes, and feel their passions, desires, joys and pain of living a life full of money, sex and greed."

I am looking forward to reading both of them! And I say, keep the free books coming.

Book Review: The Tiniest Tiger

2008-06-19T17:59:00.000-07:00

The Tiniest Tiger by Joanne McGonagle

I received a review copy of this book in the mail today from Bostick Communications. I'm looking forward to more review copies!

My review

rating: 4 of 5 stars
The Tiniest Tiger by Joanne McGonagle is a beautifully illustrated story about an alley cat who follows a butterfly into the zoo. Realizing she is far from home, she searches among the big cats in the zoo to find a new family. Within the story, the author has intertwined information describing the large cats' geographical location and their endangerment status.

My 2 1/2 year old daughter is not yet old enough to appreciate the conservation message, but she picked this book right up. She enjoyed roaring at the beautiful water color illustrations of cheetah, lion, tiger and all the other big cats.

The only negative is that there are several double pages with no illustration or color, but she skipped over those.

I am sure she will ask for the cat book night after night.

View all my reviews.

The author's website: http://www.thetiniesttiger.com/

A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian

2008-06-16T18:28:00.001-07:00

A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian : A Novel by Marina Lewycka

My review

Started reading this yesterday for the travel the world (from a comfy chair) group on Book Blogs. I really like the story so far. I'll post more as I get further.

View all my reviews.

Watchers

2008-06-15T20:13:00.000-07:00

Watchers by Dean Koontz

My review

rating: 4 of 5 stars
I really enjoyed this book although it took me a while to get into it initially. Once I got about a third of the way in, I didn't want to put it down.

This one came recommended by my mom. It seemed like an unusual book for her to enjoy, since I'm the one who grew up reading absolutely everything by Stephen King. This is the first book I've read by Dean Koontz though.

I think everyone loves the idea of a dog who can communicate with human intelligence. But the other side of this ideal that is created in an experimental government laboratory is that there is something equally intelligent and oppositionally evil lurking in the shadows. Koontz demonstrates effectively the care that must be taken to consider the consequences of scientific progress.

And my mom was right. It was really a cute story. I do have to say that the end was a little anti-climactic. I almost wanted it to end before the end where it felt a little too neatly tied up. I won't spoil it for you but the end was really sweet.

View all my reviews.

New books

2008-06-12T20:40:00.000-07:00

Hmmm...only one person voted in my poll - have to figure out how to get my blog out there more. That person chose Shakespeare, so I'm adding Comedy of Errors to my to read list because I have a copy on my shelf. I purchased it when I was in London during school. My husband and I saw it performed at the Royal Shakespeare while we were there.
Went to the bookstore today and bought some other new books. My reading group here at home read Paulo Coelho's The Alchemist for May. I've never read any of his books before, but I was excited that I found it in the General Metaphysics section because that sounds so smart.
They read Angus, Thongs and Full-Frontal Snogging this month, and I bought that too. Quick thoughts from a look inside - it is written as a diary which should make for interesting reading.
I also bought a copy of A Short History of Tractors for our travel the world (from a comfy chair) group on Book Blogs. We're going to start reading it on Monday.

Reviewing books

2008-06-03T20:26:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I started getting press release emails from Bostick Communications about getting review copies of books. I requested a review copy of a book called The Korean Palace of Honolulu by Linda Enos. I'll keep you posted as to when I receive it.

Learning to blog

2008-05-28T21:05:00.000-07:00

I got a helpful tip on how to modify my blog from Tricia at Library Queue and the founder of Book Blogs on Ning. You can see my badge from Book Blogs now on my page.
Also got some terrific information on getting started from Becky of Becky's Book Reviews (and all her other blogs) about how to get into reviewing books. The same link also has a Daring Book Challenge that I find particularly enticing.
And lastly, discovered a new author, Kathryn Maughan who wrote a novel called Did I Expect Angels? which I'm really looking forward to reading.
As many have said, "So many books, so little time." And now I'm spending more time blogging, and I'm spending less time actually reading.

Updates

2008-05-28T18:55:00.001-07:00

I have found a large group of fellow readers at Book Blogs on Ning. I've joined the group, and here is my page. I can't figure out how to modify the HTML code to add the Book Blogs badge to this blog though. I'm still too new to this blogging thing.
There are quite a lot of references there about book challenges which sound pretty interesting. You pick a challenge, call out how you're going to fulfill it, and then read the books you've chosen. It's exciting to find lots of other people who like to read. I'm looking forward to interacting with them.
It seems like a lot of people read and write about it for a living. It would be great to be able to make reading and writing my full time pursuit and my real world job part-time!
A friend suggested this website that will help you pick your next book to read. You put in the name of a book you've read, and it makes suggestions for what else to read. I'm wondering how this is different from what Amazon does. In fact, this site then directs you to Amazon.

What is this about?

2008-05-26T11:54:00.000-07:00

The purpose of this blog is to develop an online forum about books and reading and to give me an outlet to write about it.
I can tell you two things about my reading habits.

I am very fickle when it comes to books. If I start reading something and put it down, it has to engage me to get me to pick it back up again. For example, I'm currently in the middle of several books: Without Reservations by Alice Steinbach, a book called Sizwe's Test by Jonny Steinberg, The Watchers by Dean Koontz, and The Red Tent by Anita Diamont. I'm sure there are others, but those are the main ones off the top of my head. I'm reading the Koontz book most actively.
Second, I have a very eclectic shelf. My bookshelf includes Ayn Rand, St. Augustine, Italo Calvino, Herodotus, Jose Luis Borges, and many others. So this could be pretty interesting.

Lists of books

2008-05-25T19:24:00.001-07:00

I found a couple of resources for lists of great books:

First I found a website with an online library with works of literature that are free in the public domain. Here is their list of authors including such as L. Frank Baum, and I started re-reading The Wizard of Oz.

Penguin has a list of 100 Classic top-selling books. What I like best about this list is its inclusion of The Decameron by Giovanni Boccaccio at number 78. Boccaccio lived in a hill town in Tuscany, Italy called Certaldo, and that is the town where my husband and I were married. This list is very interesting as it also included The Bhagavad Gita, a yogic classic text, at number 97. I will have to peruse this list much further.

Urban Legends

A greener doctor

Stinging Nettles

The President's House

Updates

My upcoming 2 year blogiversary

Sprite Step Off Challenge

Hercules' escape

George Washington's cook, Hercules

Quilting and the Underground Railroad

Dear readers

Diary of a girl in Alabama

New poet

Chimamanda Adichie: The danger of a single story

Folk Wisdom and Mother Wit by Arvilla Payne-Jackson and John Lee

The Eight by Katherine Neville

Oprah's new pick

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson

The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri

Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe

Holidays On Ice by David Sedaris

Another review of The Story Sisters

More lists of books to read

Writerly (and other) updates

100 books for Project Fill-in-the-Gaps

HIV conspiracies

This week's Philadelphia goings-on: I heart Philadelphia

Thinking and Planning

James

An embarrassment of riches

Top 10 things to do for writer's block

Grant application

Conspiracy theories

Villa d'Este

Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban by J.K. Rowling

Beach Travel Book

Tiramisu

How do you say tampon in Italian?

I heart Chase Utley!

Can you bring home one last piece of sushi in a to go bag?

Sonic Boom

Upcoming changes to my blog

Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets by J. K. Rowling

Harry Potter and Star Wars

Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone by J. K. Rowling

Books I received as Christmas presents

Books given as Christmas presents

Bill Bryson's African diary by Bill Bryson, Jenny Matthews, and CARE International

New books I bought recently

Creativity in the cold

I Like You, by Amy Sedaris

Bad news/Good news

The planets are starting to aline

I won!

Happy NaNoWriMo!

36 books in the mail!

Book Giveaway: The Revenge of the Rinellis

Book Giveaway: The Other Side of the Horizon

Michael Crichton

Bookmooch and a random song

Books I'm reading now

Tag

The Host by Stephenie Meyer

Trixie bares her soul

Books I'm in the middle of

JAMA's White Cover: so much grist for the mill

What's the IT?

MacArthur Foundation grants

Fantastico Italia

Dreaming big

Lao-Tzu and the Te-Tao Ching

What are you waiting for?

Booking Through Thursday

My obsession with China

A female mob

Dave Eggers

The Alchemist

My review

Introducing Oenoteca

Last Comic Standing