To read... or not to read?

It's no secret that I love books. My mom loves books. My dad loves books. My brother and my sisters love books. Our living room in our many houses growing up was always easily identifiable as the one mom and dad set up all the bookshelves in. So it's no surprise that my parents have a family subscription to Audible, and that they have an extensive library. And lucky for me, I get to use it!

But my Audible obsession hit an unfortunate peak recently. 

I got to the point that if I were doing anything that didn't involve reading or listening, I felt I needed those headphones in. Showers annoyed me. Having to reply to a friend's text annoyed me. Even my husband's conversation would annoy me! So I've been on a little break for the past week, and instead of having gone through an audio book and a half in that time, I'm not even halfway done with a paper book. Actually having to hold the book and not being able to multitask makes the going so slow!! But also I'm really not liking the story at all, which doesn't make for motivated reading. However, its lack of inspiration inspired me to write a bit about a few of the myriad books I've sunk my teeth into lately, and let you know that you should read them... or stay far away.

Gone with the Wind 
by Margaret Mitchell

Not gonna lie, I hesitated to begin this one. The audio book being 50 hours long is turnoff enough, but add to that a memory of thoroughly disliking the movie when I saw it ages ago, and it took some convincing to start this one up. But over the summer both my mom and little sis Maria were very insistent that I give it a try, so I took their word for it. Three hours in I was bored and uninspired, but Bia reassured me it would pick up, so I kept plugging away. Soon enough I was hooked. Who knew a book with not one character I actually, truly liked could invoke so much interest and emotion?? I honestly didn't want the 50 hours to come to an end, and that's saying a lot. Definitely a classic worth picking up if you've never read it. And let's be honest, you probably haven't.

Crime and Punishment 

by Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Having parents who are ardent admirers of great literature (and a father who now routinely teaches a Russian literature class to my younger siblings and friends), I grew up hearing the titles and authors of the Russian Greats tossed around in conversation frequently. The images invoked by this particular title always conjured up grandiose scenery peopled by royalty and aristocrats, so by the time I got to the second sentence I was already experiencing something of a let down. However, the story was gripping, despite being slightly tediously preachy at times, and it is one that will stick with me. It's definitely worth picking up, if for nothing else than an interesting introduction to Russian lit. In the past year I've been delving more into Russian literature—Anna Karenina and Dostoyevsky's The Idiot last winter, recently Turgenev's Fathers and Sons and now Dostoyevsky again— and have discovered that in its essence lies not in its stories but in its particular approach to storytelling as well as its timeless characters. Its charm is still rather mysterious to me, but I certainly have enjoyed what tastes I've had thus far. My dad is pushing for War and Peace next... we'll see when I can work up the courage to tackle that!

The Martian
by Andy Weir

Living in Morocco, I rarely hear the buzz surrounding new books or movies. This can be poignantly illustrated by my toting around The Help by Kathryn Stockett a few years ago while on a meandering trip home through Chicago, and upon being asked by a friend what I thought of it so far, was very confused why he knew so much about the story. It had simply appeared in one of the "I'm leaving the country, here are all my books" dumps by friends not long before, and I had picked it up randomly. (Yes, I did love it.) This book and its recent movie, however, did not escape my attention, thanks to my big brother explaining the premise to me over breakfast in Chicago this summer, saying he thought Othman might like it. Well he hasn't read it/listened to it yet, but I did. In all of five days. The science was just science-y enough, the character was realistic but stopped just short of being annoying, and the story and background were just plausible enough. All that put together made for a thoroughly satisfying and gripping read. It's light reading, but good light reading, and I even learned a thing or two about botany! Now to watch the movie...

The Yacoubian Building 
by Alaa Al Aswany

Don't be fooled by the "International Number One Bestseller" scrolling atop the cover— this book doesn't have much of anything going for it. The story takes place in modern-day Cairo and follows the exploits of the residents of a large apartment building in the old downtown. It's a premise with potential, but the writing is uninspired, the themes are repetitive, and the characters who don't invoke sympathy are far too many to keep track of. This is the book-book I'm reading currently, and it's one that made its way to my bookshelf at some point but I rather wish hadn't. Perhaps many of my qualms stem from the author's seeming confusion the common maxim Show, Don't Tell, which he got backwards. While the book is meant to be a social and political commentary, I just call it boring.

source

There are many more I could talk about... I could expound on the graceless aging of Herzog by Saul Bellow, Turgenev's equally tender and melodramatic Fathers and Sons, Oliver Sack's interesting but endlessly repetitive Awakenings, the non-fiction Storm of War by Andrew Roberts which was a long but superb recount of WWII, and many more. But the reliving of each story as I write up my feelings about them has been exhausting, so I think I'll leave it at that for now.

Books in my ears

Though I've mentioned my recent obsession with audiobooks a few times on this blog, I haven't yet dedicated an entire post to the topic, though I've been meaning to for a while. So here goes!

When I was a kid, from the age of 8 or 9 to about 16 my dad would read books aloud to us kids in the evening. If my memory can be trusted we began with The Hobbit, and afterwards worked through multiple volumes of Jules Verne, the entire Lord of the Rings trilogy, and much more. I loved sitting on the living room floor or on my parents' big king-sized bed and tracing the carpet patterns with my eyes as my mind wandered far away, following my dad's voice. Those evenings are some of my favorite memories from my childhood, and set the scene for a growing love of hearing books read aloud as an adult.

My daddy, the reader.

My new-found love for having books piped through my headphones had humble beginnings last spring, when I decided to tackle George R. R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire. In March I posted a top ten TV show list here and linked to it on my Facebook. In the post I mentioned that I hadn't read the books behind HBO's A Game of Thrones yet, and a comment I got on my Facebook was that if I had a hard time finding them here (which was true) I could try finding audio versions online. I quickly got on that and for the next few months the combo of my old ipod and headphones was a faithful chores/painting/taxi ride companion. 

Once I finished all six books in that series in a ridiculously short amount of time I downloaded a few more audio books—Jane Austen's Emma and Orwell's 1984 among them—from LibriVox, which is a great project. On my annual summer trip to the US I got through 1984 before even hitting the American continent, but absolutely couldn't get through more than a few chapters of Emma, due to the distracting (read: terrible) narrators, and the fact that they were different with every chapter. So much for that.

But then during that summer vacation my lovely little sister Isa got an upgraded iPhone and had an old one lying around the house, which she gave to me. (I love all the hand-me-down electronics I get—my laptop is another, from big bro via my mom. Thanks family!) In a conversation at some point with my mom, she mentioned I could download the Audible app and probably get linked to the family account, thus having access to their entire library of audio books. At that point I was excited, but not nearly as much as I should have been!

Since July I've listened to so many books on Audible—from classics like Edith Wharton's An Age of Innocence and lots and lots of Austen (as mentioned in this post, and I was very happy to listen to a high quality reading of Emma!), to nonfiction like A Little History of the World by E. Gombrich, or lighter reading like some of P.G. Wodehouse's Jeeves and Wooster and an Agatha Christie. I've also gotten through some around-the-world fiction like Anna Karenina, A Good Earth by Pearl Buck, and Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart, and even a lecture course called The Story of the Human Language by Professor John McWhorter! That's not even the full extent but it gives you a good idea of the breadth of choice I have, and there's still so much more I'm excited to dig into. The beauty of it is not only do I have access to all this literature in English in a country where it's hard to get, but also that technology has given me a way to pick books off my parent's American bookshelves while I live in Africa! 

Photo cred

The particular occasion that prompted the timing of this blog post is that today I finished the final chapter of Tolkien's The Return of the King, after having gone through the entire trilogy. No, I didn't hear my dad's voice in the narrator's elderly timbre and British accent, but I was often reminded of those nights of tracing the flowers on living room's rug with my little finger, listening to daddy with my brothers around me, all of us transported to a different world.  

Thanks daddy-dear for a beautiful gift!

Rediscovering Ms. Austen

I recently posted a link to this great article on my Facebook:

While I truly am looking forward to reading an updated Emma by one of my favorite contemporary authors, there's nothing quite like original Jane Austen. This spree I'm on of her novels has come about due to my mother somehow sharing her Audible app with me, so every book she downloads (read: pays for) appears on my device also for me to listen to (for free)! She happens to have bought all of Jane Austen's novels, and I had been wanting to reread Emma for a while anyway, so I thus began my journey into Austen's world. I started with Persuasion, upon my mother's recommendation, never having read it before. Next came Emma, then Sense and Sensibility, and now I'm just beginning Mansfield Park— again new territory for me. I've been rather shocked realizing how many of her novels I'm unacquainted with! 

This glut of Austen has seen words like "approbation" creep into my vocabulary, which I find amusing. Her works are an interesting testament to the English language— even though they were written about 200 years ago their language remains extremely accessible, because her English isn't all that different. Yea "approbation" may have gone out of style, and I'm still a bit fuzzy about what "sanguine" describes, but I chuckled when I heard "awkward" used— it seems like such a modern word. (This isn't to say it's not a testament to her writing as well, because it certainly is. I read Wuthering Heights last spring, which was published decades later, and Ms. Bronte was unable to enthrall me, in large part because there were so many sentences that were so wholly unintelligible to this modern reader. Dickens as well wrote many years after Austen, yet his excessive language can't begin to compare with the clarity of hers.)

There is something so rewarding about listening to books on tape; I can expand my mind with great literature as I cook dinner, or pick up the apartment, or brave Casablanca taxi rides! Hearing a book read by an accomplished reader does wonders to make the story come alive and makes for a totally different experience. When I read to myself I do so quickly, and really too quickly, and end up missing out on details or discreet messages that the text holds. Othman and I had a conversation a while back about reading, and I realized that when I read I don't do a lot of work myself to make the characters come alive— I don't give them voices, imagine them vividly, or even "hear" their tone of voice, pauses, gasps and the like as I read the words on the page. As I'm a huge reader I obviously have no issue with this, and it works for me, but maybe it explains my lack of patience for poorly written books, and why character development is such an important point for me— I'm lazy and want the author to do all the work! Anyway, having an amazing reader, like the aforementioned Juliet Stevenson, makes the book seem almost like a movie for me. It's really the best of both worlds.

For anyone reading this who hasn't picked up an Austen novel in ages (or ever), consider trying out the Audible app for free, and get one of her works as your first free book—making sure of the narrator—and get ready to discover 18th century England like you've never seen (heard?) it before.

How to keep track of your books (or: This post is not about Kindergarten)

Well it is still the case that I'm in Kindergarten mode 24/7 (including very detailed dreams of lessons I've planned for the next day going wrong...), so I haven't had much time to blog lately. Nor have I had many topics, because this blog isn't the place to explain the cool lesson I taught today, or to fawn over my super-adorable students and their super-adorable personalities. Even so, here's a cute picture from class yesterday:

I could go on and on about the shapes lesson we did, which involved a
 vocabulary game playing rock paper scissors, or the learning how to use
glue sticks component, or about all the cute shapes and shape "families"
they drew on their mini whiteboards, but instead I'll just say: awwwww.

Now that that's out of my system, I'll talk about another of my favorite things (after kids and teaching)-- books!

A colleague at British Council introduced me to shelfari.com sometime last spring, and I've found it to be a really useful tool since. Shelfari has a "bookshelf" for each user with three categories: "I plan to read" "I'm reading" and "I've read", with a 5 star rating system for finished books. It has just about every book ever to search for and browse through, including synopses quotes, reader reviews, discussions, characters, even glossaries! It's a very cool resource, plus you just need your amazon account to log in (because you most likely already have one of those).

Living in Morocco it's hard to get my hands on English books, so I read mostly whatever comes my way. The upside is I read all sorts of interesting things I'd never have picked out myself, but the downside is my list of "to read" books just gets bigger instead of smaller, yet I keep forgetting what titles are on the list! So this site helps me keep track a bit and when I was in the US this summer I was able to move a couple books to the "I've read" list, which gave me a nice feeling of accomplishment.

The reason I even thought to write about Shelfari now is that I recently added two books to my profile. I'm currently reading one of Alexander McCall Smith's 44 Scotland Street novels, and loving it. My mom brought it on my family's Morocco/Euro trip and had finished it by the time she left so she gave it to me to read. I'm so happy she did because I really am enjoying it!  

Also, I recently finished a really interesting non-fiction book given to me by my friend David when I saw him this summer in Chicago. Written by a husband-and-wife investigative journalist team, it's called Provenance and is about a con-man and a forger in England operating in the late-80s and early-90s, who successfully created and sold a huge number of forged modern art paintings all across the world, and created fake "provenances", or histories (receipts of sale etc) for each. The story was incredible and the writing very fast-paced and entertaining, and full of tons of characters from all over the world. The fact that it was all real made it that much more interesting. I especially loved considering where I was and how old I was throughout the timeline, since the story spanned more than 10 years, all during my early childhood! I really enjoyed the read, and learned a lot about the art world in the process. David works at an auction house, and while I still don't really know what he does, now I've had a little glimpse into that world!

                                    
Anyway, here's a link to my profile/shelf. Take a look at the site, and if you like what you see and sign up, add me as a friend!

Remembering their voices

Having been laid up with both a virus and a stomach bug for the last week, I needed some company during my long sessions lying on the couch. Naturally I turned to my bookshelf to find something I hadn't devoured quite yet. As of last night, I've read 1024 pages this week: a non-fiction account of WWII, and Sepulchre, a page turning, run-of-the-mill novel set in France.

The highlight was definitively the WWII book. While I do love history, wars have never been of particular interest to me, and I’m not exactly sure how this book landed on my shelf. Possibly from one of my British Council colleagues who, upon leaving, distributed their book collection. Or it may have come from a vide grenier (garage sale) we went to last summer and found a treasure trove of National Geographics and books in English. Regardless, I’m glad this one found its way here.

Forgotten Voices of the Second World War, compiled and edited by Max Arthur, is 474 pages of extraordinary detail and heart wrenching realism in the form of oral account of survivors of WWII. As told by British schoolchildren, Americans on the Italian front, prisoners of war in Japanese camps and even German Luftwaffe pilots, each account jumps out at you from the page, and the book goes by incredibly quickly. These narratives are stored in the Imperial War Museum Sound Archives, and Arthur managed to tie them together to make a chronological and personal, if somewhat incomplete, account of WWII. The pictures chosen to illustrate the book amplify its impact, often official portraits of the very same people whose words you are reading, or scenes of daily life during the war.

[page 24, taken from Amazon Look Inside!]

I found it refreshingly interesting to read about the war from a mostly British perspective; the only instance where mostly American soldiers were interviewed was during the Italian campaign, otherwise it was strictly focused on where the Brits were involved. I never knew there was a significant campaign in Myanmar (then-Burma) against the Japanese, with many Indian soldiers fighting alongside the British, and another in North Africa. 

Aside from the historical tidbits that I appreciated, the voices of those interviewed come out loud and clear; it so often seemed they were relating things that happened just the other day, not decades prior. The individuality of the events experienced by common people simply trying to make it through the war was incredibly powerful. Commoners make up the world but don’t often make up the history books.

[page 8, taken from Amazon Look Inside!]

More compelling than anything I can say, here are a few vignettes:

Karin Busch                                                      
German schoolgirl in Dresden                                                                    
As America came into the war and things became harder for the German people, the more resolved the German population became. People felt that the war had to be won. German people were not politically free-thinking. In England, everyone had their newspaper, people read papers with opposing views, people discussed politics in the pub and people generally tried to form their own opinions. In Germany, it was far more important that one’s house was kept tidy. All politics was left to the politicians, so the country and the mass of people followed their leader. [page 155]

Sword Beach, 8.40 am, D-Day. Commandos of the 1st Special Service Brigade land at the La Brèche area, accompanied by Brigadier the Lord Lovat to the right of the column and, nearest to the camera, still aboard, the  brigade bagpiper, Bill Millan. [page 317]

Private James Bramwell
224 Parachute Field Ambulance, RAMC  [fighting in Normandy]                              A chap was brought in with the top of his head blown off, brains spilling out into the stretcher. The MO look one look at him. I said, “Is there anything we can do?” He shrugged. So I gave him a lethal shot of morphine. When the MO came back, I told him what I’d done. He said, “It’s OK, you did quite right. There was nothing we could do.” I’m sure there were many others like these, but we did not talk about them. [page 333]

[page 20, taken from Amazon Look Inside!]

Sylvia Townson                                                                                             Civilian in London     
We had a party on VE day. They must have closed off Fernhead Street because they had a bonfire in the middle of the road. There was lots of food because everyone gave something towards it off their coupons. I remember my father entered me for the talent contest. I belted out “You are my Sunshine”. I came second. [page 431]