2009 Oct-Dec zdino book log

Books read recently by J. Zimmerman.

Disclaimer. Links. Booker Prizes Chocolate.
Books read Best books read in 2009.
Best writers of poetry and prose
Harry Potter; also Harry Potter en Español.
New books on Christianity and Spirituality
by Pagels, Ehrman, et al.

Why read a book? English grammar.
boo The Mental Health of George W. Bush

Jimmy Carter (Nobel Lecture - Oslo, December 10, 2002):
"War may sometimes be a necessary evil.
But no matter how necessary,
it is always an evil, never a good.
We will not learn how to live together in peace
by killing each other's children."

.

Reader's Bill of Rights [after Daniel Pennac in Better than Life from November 2003 Utne Magazine] includes the rights to:

Skip pages Not read Not finish Not defend your tastes

{ November : noviembre (see also books on learning Spanish) 2009 }

(11.20.2009)

Finished listening to Our man in Havana by Graham Greene, a delightful romp, recorded by the BBC and including the beautiful voice of Eleanor Bron.

(11.19.2009)

Such a somber struggle to finish 2009 Man Booker Prize short-list nominee The Little Stranger by Sarah Waters. Set in socially tumultuous Britain at the end of World War II, this tale of madness and lies is sometimes interesting but often dull and predictable; feels as if the plot is constructed in large cement blocks; had to skim-read to finish it.
Despite Waters' critical acclaim, I've had a similar problems with Waters other novels of romance, sin, and murder, particularly her other nominees:
- The Night Watch was short-listed in 2006.
- Fingersmith was short-listed in 2002.

(11.17.2009)

Reread Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood after reading her companion book The Flood.
Both books can be read independently. The Flood works well as a stand-alone novel. Oryx and Crake is a bit more cerebral, a bit richer in explanations. Each is a scary-yet-funny adventure that explore what it is to be human.
Both are enthralling to read: Oryx and Crake gives the inside story of the hubris leading to The Flood; The Flood gives more of the story from the outside.
The Year of the Flood: A Novel (2009) by Margaret Atwood.
May well be the best book read in 2009.

(11.15.2009)

Finished listening to 1981 Man Booker Prize, Midnight's Children (1981) by Salman Rushdie.
Magical realism epic charting the 20th-century nation building of India and the chaotic elements that are unavoidable in Rushdie.

(11.13.2009)

Finished The Wreath (1920) by Sigrid Undset (1882-1949), winner of the 1928 Nobel Prize for Literature: she gave away all her Nobel Prize money, to establish writers' scholarships and children's foundations.
This new translation by Tiina Nunnally won the 1997 PEN/Faulkner Award for fiction translation.
Set in 14th century medieval Norway, this is the first book of the trilogy Kristin Lavransdatter, telling the life of a passionate woman and the costs and consequences of her choices. The Trilogy's sections (translated by Nunnally) are: The Wreath, The Wife, and The Cross, dividing Kristin's story along the natural divisions of maiden-woman-crone.
Recommended by Chet Raymo ( When God is Gone Everything is Holy: the Making of a Religious Naturalist) for its "the transforming power of the holy" and by novelist Karin Fossum.

(11.12.2009)

Finished Beyond Black by Hilary Mantel.
This is a hilarious and heart-breaking tale of a woman whose horrendous experiences as a child have led her to connect with the Spirit world. The most jarring points are when the reader goes, "wait a mo, I don't believe in this Spirit world, who actually killed who, here". The second half is a bit madder and scarier than the first half, but the whole thing has a practical honesty of expression (which is often cheerfully the same as rudeness).

Includes [p. 287] helpful insight into which of the Tarot card governing the Internet, though with latitude for other interpretations:

She [Al] levered herself upright ... to see how the cards had fallen. The two of pentacles is the card of the self-employed, indicating uncertainty of income, restlessness, fluctuations, an unquiet mind, and an imbalance between the output of energy and the inflow of money ... It's not a card you want to draw when you are making next year's business plan.
Colette [Al's business manager who is making next year's business plan] had got her online these days, e-mailing predictions around the globe and doing readings for people in different time zones. ... In Al's belief, the four of swords governed the Internet. Its color was electric blue and its influence bore on people in a crowd, on meetings of groups, on ideas that has mass appeal. Not all the psychics agreed; some backed the claims of the four, five, and six of cups, which govern secret areas of knowledge, recycled concepts, and work pursued in windowless rooms such as cellars or basements. As read by Mrs. Etchells, the four of swords indicates a short stay in the hospital.

This book well deserved its place on the long list of the 2006 Man Booker Prize.

Earlier I'd given up on her Wolf Hall, despite its being the winner of the 2009 Man Booker Prize. So I was pleased to find that another of Mantel's books held my attention better.

(11.11.2009)

Big Basin OWCH hike to Chalk Mountain and Berry Creek Falls: flowers, banana slugs, and more.

(11.9.2009)

Ribbons: Fall 2009 issue. Excellent: includes Tanka of J. Zimmerman.

(11.5.2009)

Skim-finished Envy (2005) by Kathryn Harrison.
Harrison was recommended by hunch.com as "top" author whose work I might like. Her The Seal Wife was terrific. Envy is not so good: the first half is ho-hum with too much talking and analysis. The second half has more interesting events. But the book's bottom line is just too predictable from the moment we first heard that one brother left the family in the lurch in the early hours of the other brother's wedding morning.

(11.3.2009)

The Seal Wife: A Novel (2002) by Kathryn Harrison.
Harrison was recommended by hunch.com as "top" author whose work I might like. I had tried her book Envy but it was ho-hum and I was not impressed by the plot or the writing.
The Seal Wife, however, is much stronger, with sensual writing and a fascinating plot: page-turning read of obsession, devotion, self-control, deception, and glory. Almost makes my list of best books read in 2009.

(11.1.2009)

Hinge & sign: poems, 1968-1993 (1994) by Heather McHugh.
Dipped into the book (a finalist for the National Book Award and named a "Notable Book of the Year" by the New York Times Book Review) but not grabbed. Maybe the more recent work of this 2009 MacArthur Fellow and 1999-to-2006 Chancellor of the Academy of American Poets is more interesting?

{ October : octubre (see also books on learning Spanish) 2009 }

(10.28.2009)

Southern Poetry Review and other poetry journals.

(10.25.2009)

The Captain's Verses poems by Pablo Neruda. A few good ones particularly in the initial section, "Love".

(10.24.2009)

Zeitoun by Dave Eggers.
Nonfiction story of people in New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina.

(10.22.2009)

new this year The Year of the Flood: A Novel (2009)
May well be the best book read in 2009.

(10.20.2009)

The Gospel of Judas edited by Randolphe Kasser, Marvin Meyer, and Gregor Wurst, with additional commentary by Bart D. Ehrman.
This book was referenced in The Lost Gospel of Judas Iscariot: a New Look at Betrayer and Betrayed by Bart D. Ehrman.
While detailed and insightful The Lost Gospel of Judas Iscariot: a New Look at Betrayer and Betrayed is more interesting to read and has much of the same information, though not the text of Judas itself.

(10.19.2009)

Skimmed Walking Zero: Discovering Cosmic Space and Time Along the Prime Meridian by Chet Raymo.
A walk along the Greenwich Meridian from Peacehaven (Brighton) past Darwin's house and Newton's chambers to the North Sea. And a short history of astronomy, geology, and paleontology.
See also Raymo's When God is Gone Everything is Holy: the Making of a Religious Naturalist

(10.18.2009)

Finished listening to the CD of The Wave (2005) by Walter Mosley.
A science fiction zombie story with disregard to science (e.g. what life forms remained left after the dinosaurs died out). A quick listen while zipping through chores.
Not as complex and interesting as Mosley's 'Easy Rawlins' novels such as A Red Death (1991).

(10.16.2009)

Finished listening to the CD of Twilight by Stephenie Meyer.
A thrills-and-chills tale of teen love and vampire flirtation! How delicious!

(10.15.2009)

Gave up on Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel.
Winner of the 2009 Man Booker Prize.
It's a humanization of Richard Cromwell, wolf and advisor to Henry VIII. The book starts of well (and definitely more readably than its competitor, A.S. Byatt's The Children's Book. But it palls compared with recent Nobelist Herta Müller's The Appointment or even Steig Larsson's The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.

(10.14.2009)

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (2009 in UK/USA; 2006 in Sweden) by Steig Larsson (1954-2004) (Reg Keeland translated from Swedish).
Second book in the Salander series; the first was The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (2008 in UK/USA; 2005 in Sweden).
A spell-binding mystery that continues the saga of Lizbeth Salander, both moving forward in time and also backward to Salander's youth. Larsson does well to construct and unweave this complex murder mystery with a half dozen threads. Works particularly well after reading the first book and therefore knowing Salander's skills and determination.
Despite some of the most horrendous sections, including violence to women and a live burial and the world's most despicable father, Larsson also gives some humor, particularly a delicious Full Monte of IKEA shopping.
As with his first book, this is not only an enthralling story, but it is also a meditation on loyalty among friends. And the importance of loyalty in even the worst of times.

(10.10.2009)

Extinguished Candles (2009), edited by June Hopper Hymas, the 2009 Members' Anthology of the Yuki Teikei Haiku Society.

Included:

Results of the 2009 Tokutomi Haiku Contest
Exerpts from Autumn Loneliness, the book of the Tokutomi letters
YTHS Regional Saijiki draft
June Hymas' article: "Google Your Kigo"

as well as three haiku of mine:

Alone watering sunflowers tall as her son was [An earlier version was in Geppo (September 2008)] Summer heat the sous-chef and the chocolate out of temper [Originally in Geppo (September 2008)] Months after his death the river light he showed me still shimmers [In memory of James Arnold at Big Basin State Park] [Originally in Geppo (January 2008)]
Copyright © 2008-2009 by J. Zimmerman.

(10.9.2009)

The Appointment (German title Heute wär ich mir lieber nicht begegnet) by Herta Müller, our 2009 Nobel Laureate for Literature.
The best fiction I've read this year — kind of Kafka-meets-Wendy-Cope.

(10.8.2009)

Skimmed When God is Gone Everything is Holy: the Making of a Religious Naturalist by Chet Raymo.
Religious naturalism; spiritual and celebratory agnosticism.
One chapter devoted to praising "the transforming power of the holy" exemplified in Sigrid Undset's books (which I'd acquired previously thanks to Karin Fossum).
Also relates how the C version of gene VMAT2 (see also Hammer's The God Gene) correlates with testing high for self-transcendence, feelings of "at oneness", and an inclination to religion (and psychosis).
Starts with a terrific 5-line poem, "Sacrament", by Alden Nowlan.

(10.7.2009)

Big Basin OWCH hike to Chalk Mountain and Berry Creek Falls: flowers, banana slugs, and more.

(10.6.2009)

Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel is announced as the winner of the 2009 Man Booker Prize.

(10.5.2009)

Began Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel.
2009 Winner of the 2009 Man Booker Prize.

(10.3.2009)

Finished Numbers in the Dark (1995) by Italo Calvino, author of Six Memos for the Next Millennium and The Castle of Crossed Destinies (read in the Introduction to Reading Fiction class).

[Thanks for visiting.]