Books Read: Summer 2014

18. Imperfect Birds by Anne Lamott

17. Insight Guides: South Africa

16. The Stone Angel by Margaret Laurence (Cdn)

15. Next by Michael Crichton

14. The Valley of Horses by Jean Auel (audio book)

13. Déjà Dead by Kathy Reichs (Cdn)

12. Benjamin Franklin by Edwin Gaustad

11. The Garden of Burning Sand by Corban Addison
10. Night Music by Jojo Moyes

9. Surviving the Toxic Workplace: Protect Yourself Against the Co-workers, Bosses, and Work Environments That Poison Your Day by Linnda Durre

8. Bones are Forever by Kathy Reichs (audio book) (Cdn)

7. Squirrel Seeks Chipmunk by David Sedaris (audio book)

6. Wicked by Gregory Maguire

5. The White Bone by Barbara Gowdy (Cdn)
4. The Emotional Life of Your Brain by Richard Davison (audio book)

3. Don't Look Behind You: A Safari Guide's Encounters with Ravenous Lions, Stampeding Elephants, and Lovesick Rhinos by Peter Allison

2. The Only Boy in the World: A Father Explores the Mysteries of Autism by Michael Blastland

1. Canadian Pie by Will Ferguson (Cdn)

Hummus was on sale this week - 16 little single servings for only $4!

And then my Mom came and brought me garden carrots.

And this is amazing food.

P.S. Welcome, C!

Factorials

Remember "factorials" from high school math? (Yeah, I know, that was a long time ago.) Factorials is the chapter where we talked about how "5!" means 5+4+3+2+1, (for example). 

I've been playing this sudoku-esque game lately called Kakuro lately, where you have to add numbers (1-9 with no repeats) together to equal a certain sum in a number crossword fashion (you can take a look at www.kakuro.com or on wikipedia). It's made me play with factorials (without even realizing it) because I've come to recognized that if the total is 15 and it has 5 boxes, it has to be 1,2,3,4,5 and a total of 35 in 5 boxes is 9,8,7,6,5.  I started to notice some patterns...

1+2   =   3   =   1x3

1+2+3   =   6   =    2x3

1+2+3+4   =  10   =  2x5 

1+2+3+4+5   =   15   =  3x5 

1+2+3+4+5+6   =   21   =   3x7

1+2+3+4+5+6+7   =    28   =   4x7

1+2+3+4+5+6+7+8   =   36   =   4x9

1+2+3+4+5+6+7+8+9   =   45   =   5x9  

1+2+3+4+5+6+7+8+9+10   =   55   =   5x11

In every case, the two numbers that multiply to equal the factorial (sum of the reducing numbers) increases by one every second time for the first number, and two every second time for the second number.

The first multiple is the biggest number added together divided by two (rounded up if the biggest number is odd). The second number is the biggest number added plus zero (if the biggest number is odd) or one (if the biggest number is even).

So any number plus the sum of all the numbers beneath it (n!) equals that number divided by two, times that number (maybe plus one) (n/2 x n+1 for even numbers).

Memories from math tell me that this can also be written as (n^2+n)/2 = n!  (it's a little clearer when it's not restricted by typing). And that works even for the odd numbers - the rounding up and the adding one offset each other.

That means that if you want to know the sum of a number plus every number beneath it, you times the number by itself, add it in again, and divide the whole thing by two!

I think that this is the formula they taught us in high school - I haven't actually discovered anything new here - but I am super pumped to have figured it out by myself.  =)

I'm not so good at Kakuro though... I only get the really hard ones that my Mom saves me from her city's Saturday comics (it shares a page with the crossword and wordsearch), so I can't build up my skills - I'm thrown into the five star puzzles and consistently not getting very far.  Knowing the formula to solve factorials isn't actually helping me.  But I'm having fun with this!

Books Read: Spring 2014

15. The Friday Night Knitting Club by Kate Jacobs

14. A Morbid Taste for Bones: A Mediaeval Whodunnit by Ellis Peters

13. I Am Morgan le Fay by Nancy Springer

12. Cranford by Elizabeth Gaskell (audio book)

11. Belonging: Home Away from Home by Isabel Huggan (Cdn)
10. Wiped: Life with a Pint-Sized Dictator by Rebecca Eckler (Cdn)
9. Hail to the Chiefs: Presidential Mischief, Morals & Malarky from George W. to George W. by Barbara Holland

8. The Brethren by John Grisham
7. The Testament by John Grisham
6. Belle: The Slave Daughter and the Lord Chief Justice by Paula Byrne
5. Capitol Murder by Philip Margolin (audio book)
4. The Book of Madness and Cures by Regina O'Melveny (audio book)
3. The Land of Painted Caves by Jean Auel (audio book)
2. DK Eyewitness Travel: Cambodia and Laos 
1. Any Known Blood by Lawrence Hill (Cdn)

Imitation

I like it when my friends say, "You inspired me to..." I like seeing myself, in their habits, in their houses. I like mattering to them. 

More to Read

Yesterday, Amanda and I went to the Book Sale!! It was FANTASTIC, and I came home with a suitcase full of books. Literally. I brought my wheely luggage along with me so I wouldn't have to carry everything around (I saw them recommend something like that on their website), and you couldn't have fit many more books in there by the time I was done!

Afterwards Amanda had to run off to another engagement, so we didn't have time for a full show-and-tell.  I told her I'd list my new acquisitions here so she could get a feel for what I came home with.  =)

Fiction

1. The Willows in Winter by William Horwood (read 12/2014)

2. The Willows and Beyond by William Horwood (read 06/2016)

These books are sequels to Kenneth Grahame's The Wind in the Willows, a book which I adored when I read it a several years ago. I look forward to going back to it, and then seeing how this new author developed the story.

3. Mary Poppins Comes Back by P L Travers (read 05/2015)

This book looked charming. It was first published in 1935, and this small hardcover is from 1963.

4. I Am Morgan le Fay: A Tale from Camelot by Nancy Springer (read 06/2014)

I first heard of Morgan le Fay, a character in the Camelot myths, in Stargate SG1. After that I started watching Merlin on Netflix, where "Morgana" has a central role. This book will tie in to that, and will hopefully be another entertaining perspective on Arthurian legend.

5. Tales from Shakespeare by Charles and Mary Lamb

This book, written in the early 1800s, retells 20 of Shakespeare's plays in prose. It's unlikely that I will ever harness my attention and efforts enough to make it through (any of) Shakespeare's works on my own, but I feel like an understanding of his plots are important if I'm an intelligent person. This book will help me out immensely with that.

Classics

6. Cannery Row by John Steinbeck

This good-condition Penguin publication "draw[s] another evocative portrait of life as it is lived by those who unabashedly put the highest value on the intangibles - human warmth, camaraderie, and love."

7. The Mill on the Floss by George Eliot

This Penguin paperback is old and faded but in really good condition, and I really liked Eliot's Middlemarch so I thought I'd give this a try. It claims to be "an affectionate and perceptive study of provincial  life, a brilliant evocation of the complexities of human relationships and a heroine whose rebelious spirit closely resembles George Eliot's own."

8. The Portrait of a Lady by Henry James

This Norton Critical Edition matches many of the textbooks I used in the English class I took a few years ago, and the title finds itself on many best-book lists.

9. Tales from the Thousand and One Nights (read another edition 07/2023)

These Arabian Nights stories are also on a must-read list I'm following, and the Penguin paperback should match others that I own.  =) 

10. The Magnificent Ambersons by Booth Tarkington

This book won a Pulitzer Prize in 1918, and records a man's fall from American aristocracy down to the working class.  Confession: I bought it because it was published by The Modern Library Classics, and its copper spine will fit in with others on my shelf.

Observation: I purchase classics for the publisher/edition/condition as much as for anything else. I guess when they've been deemed that popular, lots of different companies publish them so I can afford to be choosy - and I like it when my bookshelf matches itself.

Carol Shields

11. The Stone Diaries

12. The Republic of Love (read 05/2015)

13. Larry's Party  (read 12/2014)

14. Swann

Danaya lent my a book by Carol Shields (Unless) and it was so good. Although it didn't have much of a plot, its writing and the ideas it explored were beautiful.  At the book sale, with excitement I bought all that I could find by Shields.

15. The Amateur Marriage by Anne Tyler (read 12/2014)

Anne Tyler also wrote Saint Maybe, which stuck with me for a long time after I read it. Unfortunately this book didn't describe itself on the back or inside cover - it advertised itself only by reviews. That bothers me (what's it about?!!), but I bought the book anyways. According the the St. Lois Post-Dispach, "Tyler's heartbreaking new novel... evokes the entire sweep of Michael and Pauline Anton's marriage with uncommon delicacy and dignity... This is a story not of extraordinary but of everyday drama. Just two people fumbling through life, amateurs in a game you must occasionally fail at first to become a pro."

16. A Recipe For Bees by Gail Anderson-Dargatz (read 01/2016)

While watching a woman retrace her life, this book "is saturated with bee lore, and is full of rich, domestic detail, wondrous imagery culled from rural kitchens and gardens, and shining insights into the delights and exasperations of ageing, family and friendship. And at its heart is the life, death and resurrection of an extraordinary marriage."

17. Imperfect Birds by Anne Lamott  (read 09/2014)

I have also enjoyed Anne Lamott's writing, and her authorship was a large factor in my choosing this book. The description explains: "Rosie Ferguson is seventeen and ready to enjoy the summer before her senior year of high school. She's smart, athletic, and beautiful - everything her mother, Elizabeth, and stepfather, James, hoped she would be. But as the school year draws to a close, there are disturbing signs that the well-adjusted teenage life that Rosie claims to be leading is not as it seems, and that Elizabeth's hopes for her daughter to remain immune from the world's darker impulses could be dashed. Slowly and painfully, Elizabeth and James are forced to confront the fact that Rosie has been lying to them - and that her deceptions have profound consequences for them all."

18. The Friday Night Knitting Club by Kate Jacobs (read 06/2014)

This book is about a knitting club, and it's popular, and I like knitting so I guess I should read it. It says that USA Today said that it's "Like Steel Magnolias set in Manhattan." I wonder if it's like Angry Housewives Eating Bonbons (a fantastic story of a neighbourhood book club) or The Yada Yada Prayer Group (a pretty good story of community in a prayer group). I guess I'm less excited about this book because the idea of a group of women sharing life's highs and lows is getting a little tiresome... but it is also about knitting, after all.

19. Summer's Child by Luanne Rice (read 03/2016)

Certain authors were very, very well represented at the book sale, and Luanne Rice was one who had a number of books on the tables. This doesn't mean the books aren't good - it mostly means lots of people purchased them and then didn't feel the need to keep them. It generally represents a book or author's popularity. It's a good place to try out a popular author! I picked this author and this book because it was in good condition and it looked interesting enough. A character "will find the magic that exists in people we love the best... the everyday miracles that can make the extraordinary happen anywhere," set in a community in Nova Scotia where years ago a woman disappeared. (And one of the characters is named Mara!)

20. The Lincoln Lawyer by Michael Connelly (read 03/2015)

I saw the movie about an LA lawyer who works from his car, and decided to give the book a try. I wonder how it will compare to the John Grisham lawyer-y books I've been reading lately!

21. A Case of Need by Michael Crichton (read 07/2016)

This is a medical drama, one of Crichton's early works - back when he was using a pen name.

22. A Morbid Taste for Bones: A Mediaeval Whodunnit by Ellis Peters (read 06/2014)

There were lots and lots from this series available at the book sale, so I thought I'd give the first one a try. It's a mystery set in a monastery in the 1100s.

23. Wild Geese by Martha Ostenso

I bought this book completely because of its publisher: it's part of the New Canadian Library series, and these editions have stopped being printed. To expand my collection (they're really pretty!) I look closely for them whenever I'm at a used book sale - but this time I only found this one and one other I already owned. There must be other collectors out there? Or everyone is just hanging on to what they have. First published in 1925, set on the Canadian prairies, and introducing a wild feminine heroine, this book claims to be a "milestone in the development of modern realist fiction," as opposed to "sentimental escapist literature."

Non-Fiction

24. Wiped: Life with a Pint-Sized Dictator by Rebbecca Eckler  (read 05/2014)

This book humorously explores the not-so-fun newborn period - and I'd like to gain a better perspective on that to relate to those I know of who have just had a baby and are having a hard time.

25. Belonging by Isabel Huggan  (read 05/2014)

This book "contemplates the meaning of home and the importance of remembrance," a memoir that explores the world and then settles in southern France.

26. My Life in France by Julia Child and Alex Prud'homme

Since watching and reading Julie and Julia, Julia Child has become increasingly interesting to me. As well as writing a famous cookbook, she was an original TV cooking personality. And I saw her actual kitchen in a museum when I was in DC! So I decided it was time to read her memoir - or own it at least. 

27. Incontinent on the Continent by Jane Christmas  (read 05/2015)

At first I was a little startled by the title of this book, but as I picked it up and looked over it, I decided it looked pretty interesting. It is subtitled, "My mother, her walker, and our grand tour of Italy."

28. Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert Pirsig  (attempted but abandoned)

I've been half-intending to read this classic for a while, and here's my chance!

29. Committed: A Skeptic Makes Peace with Marriage by Elizabeth Gilbert (read 06/2017)

This book is by the author of Eat, Pray, Love - of which there were a zillion copies at the book sale. I really liked that book, and am interested to read what else she has to explore!

Non-Narrative

30. The Art of Travel by Alain de Botton (read 03/2015)

I really like Alain de Botton and his interesting perspectives on his topics, and I really like travelling, and I was surprised that he has a book about it! (I guess I've developed new interests since the last time I explored de Botton's writing.)

31. Insight Guides Boston

I think I'd like to visit Boston someday, so I picked up a travel guide to prepare for that eventuality. Hopefully it doesn't just get lost on the shelf and forgotten before then; I just discovered a little guide to DC on my shelf, now that I've gone there and come back!

31. Hail to the Chiefs: Presidential Mischief, Morals, & Malarky from George W. to George W. by Barbary Holland (read 05/2014)

I think it would be valuable for me to learn something about all the American presidents, and this would be a humorous way to do so!

32. Emotional Vampires: Dealing with People Who Drain You Dry by Albert Bernstein (read 12/2016)

I've had some people like this in my life, and have found myself so drained that I start to look at everyone as "emotional vampires," and I have a hard time considering new friendships in fear that I will find more of them! I hope that in reading this book, I will find some strategies to deal with such people so that I won't need to feel so self-protective towards everyone else.

33. Do What You Are: Discover the Perfect Career for You Through the Secrets of Personality Type by Paul Tieger and Barbara Barron-Tieger

This book explores the Meyers-Briggs personality types (which I can never keep straight in my head) and applies them to work. Although I'm not looking to change jobs right now, it should be interesting.

34. Company's Coming Squares by Jean Pare

I recently tried to make Puffed Wheat Squares, but discovered I didn't have the recipe!! I had to call my Mom, and she looked it up in this classic book for me. I couldn't believe I didn't have it - but that's remedied now!

35. Company's Coming Gifts from the Kitchen by Jean Pare

This colourful book has a bunch of fun recipes, as well as ideas for wrapping. I felt like I couldn't turn it down.

36. Time-Life Foods of the World: A Quintet of Cuisines by Michael and Frances Field

The books in this classic series describes an area's cuisine as well as providing recipes, and this book covers Switzerland, the Low Countries (including Belgium, Luxembourg, and the Netherlands), Poland, Bulgaria and Romania, and North Africa (Tunisia, Algeria and Morocco). I have some sort of connection to several of these countries, and I have a few other books from this series, so I decided to add this one to my collection.

For Mom

37. Voyager by Diana Gabaldon

I started my Mom a collection of the Outlander series. She hasn't started reading them yet, but this book adds to the middle of that collection - this is number three, and I had previously given her one, two, and four. Unfortunately it's a little tattered.

38. Red, White, and Drunk All Over by Natalie MacLean

I know my Mom loves this book about wine. Although she already has a copy, I got her another to pass off to a friend.

Books Read: Winter 2014

26. Learning to Swim by Sara Henry
In this story, a woman rescues a boy who has been thrown off the back of a ferry. She instantly loves this child and vows to protect him - while trying to uncover the people who kidnapped and then tried to kill him.
25. Daisy Fay and the Miracle Man by Fannie Flagg
Fannie Flagg is the author who wrote Fried Green Tomatoes, and I wanted to read more by her. Daisy Fay is a charming character - she reminded me of Scout in To Kill a Mockingbird. They are both precocious (a word I learned in high school English discussions of Scout), and you have to look through what they are observing to find out what is really happening.
24. How to Be Good by Nick Hornby
I really enjoy Nick Hornby's writing: it's heartfelt and insightful. This story was about a woman considering leaving her husband, and his sudden conversion to consideration and unselfishness.
23. An Acre of Time: The Play by Jason Sherman
This play was based on the book, but it was a bit bizarre - it added more characters, and kept jumping between past and present in a disjointed fashion. (Cdn)
22. An Acre of Time by Phil Jenkins
This book takes a small piece of land in Ottawa, and tracks everything that happened there and around there, since prehistoric times when ocean covered North America! I thought that was a really interesting concept. (Cdn)
21. Doctor Who: Demon Quest: A Shard of Ice by Paul Magrs (audio book)
I borrowed this audio book from the library because Amanda has been so smitten by Doctor Who lately. The novella follows the plot where someone has sold their soul to the devil. It wasn't great - but at least it was short.
20. Forbidden City  by William Bell
This was a story of a 17 year old Canadian boy who was living in Beijing in 1989 at the time of the Tiananmen Square Massacre. It was a fascinating look at what happened in that tragedy: how the Chinese government brutally put down a peaceful student demonstration just asking to meet with the leader. (Cdn)
19. Frommer's Ottawa by James Hale
This book helped me identify what I wanted to see and do in Ottawa! (Cdn)
18. Nancy Drew 4: The Mystery at Lilac Inn by Carolyn Keene
17. The Novel Cure: An A-Z of Literary Remedies by Ella Berthoud and Susan Elderkin
16. Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe by Fannie Flagg
This story of a small town in the 1930s, recounted by an old woman in the 1980s, draws the reader along by its alinear story line.
15. Mennonites Don't Dance by Darcie Friesen Hossack
This collection of stories, mostly set in Saskatchewan, mostly about Mennonite people, was deep and heartfelt and definitely worth reading.  (Cdn)
14. The Happy Baker: A Dater's Guide to Emotional Baking by Erin Bolger
This was a fun book. Recipes for goodies are interspersed with humorous tales of the author's dating life. Hearing her write unabashedly about her childhood crushes and first date adventures made me recognize how uncomfortable I still am with choices my younger self made. I can't wait to make "Maybe It's Destiny Dream Bars" - a chocolate brownie sort of thing with peanut butter chips and sweetened condensed milk on top!  (Cdn)
13. Boy O'Boy by Brian Doyle
I checked this young adult book out of the library because it is set in Ottawa, and I like reading stories about places I am planning to visit. It is the tale of a young boy growing up in Ottawa at the close of WWII, who has a run-in with a pedophile. The diction is a quaint reminder of what it's like to be 9 years old.  (Cdn)
12. The Schopenhauer Cure by Irvan Yalom
This book combines a biography of the philosopher Schopenhauer with a modern-day story of a therapy group, one member of which is a proponent and embodiment of the philosopher. I'm not sure I came out of it with a very clear idea of what Schopenhauer thought, but it was a very interesting read.
11. The Vinyl Cafe: Out and About by Stuart McLean (audio book)
Stuart McLean's stories are always so entertaining. But I need to remember (by title) which vignettes I've already heard and learn which books are compilations of stories also included in other books - this one had some repeats for me.  (Cdn)
10. The Winner Stands Alone by Paulo Coelho (audio book)
A man goes to the Cannes Film Festival following his ex-wife, who is with another man. He hopes to send her the message that he still loves her and would welcome her back - but he communicates this by murdering innocent people. His logic was haunting, but the story was interesting.
9. Nancy Drew 3: The Bungalow Mystery by Carolyn Keene
8. Margaret Powell's Cookery Book by Margaret Powell
The cover page description of this book is "From the author of Below Stairs, the memoir that inspired Upstairs, Downstairs and Downtown Abbey; 500 Recipes from everyone's favourite kitchen maid and cook." Of the 500 recipes, there were only about 7 I'd want to make though. 
7. Un Amico Italiano: Eat, Pray, Love in Rome by Luca Spaghetti
This is the story of one of the Italian characters in Eat, Pray, Love. He discusses his Roman upbringing, and his adventure of developing a friendship with Elizabeth Gilbert.  It was okay.
6. Vinyl Cafe: Story Land by Stuart McLean (audio book) (Cdn)
5. Essential Do's and Taboos: The Complete Guide to International Business and Leisure Travel by Roger Axtell
I think that international etiquette is an important subject.  Actions that are neutral in one culture can be offensive in others, and it's hard to know how to avoid offending people if you haven't done some studying.  However, this book wasn't all I hoped it would be. It was more focused on businesses and exporting than leisure travel, and it barely seemed to skim the surface of what I was interested in.  
4. Nancy Drew 2: The Hidden Staircase by Carolyn Keene
Everything in Nancy Drew's life is quite perfect - everyone is slim and beautiful and relatively rich and confident. I looked it up on Wikipedia, and discovered that the books were originally written in the 1930s (and have been significantly revised since then - old editions are actually different than the ones published now). I also learned that "Carolyn Keene" is a pen name for a number of (mostly) men who wrote stories!
3. Nancy Drew 1: The Secret of the Old Clock by Carolyn Keene
I had tons of Nancy Drew books when I was young. As I grew up, I gave them to a younger cousin, and I think she eventually got rid of them.  Now I have become nostalgic for my childhood reading, and I've thought of repurchasing Nancy Drew books - but I've realized that borrowing them from the library is a much better idea.
2. Dead Man's Folly by Agatha Christie (audio book)
I got a stack of audio books from the library to amuse me during my Christmas travels. This one was okay, but the conclusion was something the reader (er, listener) could never guess. I prefer it when the solution to the mystery is just barely beyond my grasp, but I can see how the whole story was leading up to it.  Still, I read (or listen to) Agatha Christie stories as a tribute to Mara.
1. Turn Right at Machu Picchu by Mark Adams
I purchased this book for my Mom back in the summer because she would love to go to Machu Picchu. When I gave it to her, I asked her to lend it back to me when she was finished. I don't know much about South American history, so this wasn't as fantastic as if I had more knowledge to fit it into, but it was very interesting. Maybe Mom and I will make it there someday!

To Read: The Novel Cure

I got a book out of the library called "The Novel Cure: An A-Z of Literary Remedies" by Ella Berthoud and Susan Elderkin.  In an encyclopedia-style format, this book lists common emotional ailments, and then suggests novels that deal with these problems.  It gave me a list of books I look forward to reading, whether I'm looking for the associated cure or just interested in the description given of the book.

Logan's Run by William F. Nolan and George Clayton Johnston
In this world, no one ages: everyone is euthanized at 22 to avoid becoming old. It seems the novel follows some characters who try to escape this fate.
(Prescribed for a cure for the Horror of Aging)

Family Matters by Rohinton Mistry
I have this book, but haven't gotten around to reading it yet. The Novel Cure says it is about an old man who needs to rely on his children to care for him. The first set do a bad job of it; later he is passed on to other family who don't have much but do care for him.  It's about making sure seniors have dignity.
(Prescribed to address Aging Parents)

The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway
A man catches a fish that he can't pull in, and hangs on to it as he is dragged out into the ocean. But the appeal of this book is in its "simple, calming prose" and the old man's optimistic acceptance.
(Prescribed to cure Anger)
(read 10/2015)

The Postman Always Rings Twice by James M. Cain
This seems to be the story of a con man with a love for life. "By the end, you'll be up and about with a bounce in your step, throwing caution to the wind in your determination to have a hand in fate, setting you on a more spontaneous and proactive - if slightly reckless - new tack."
(Prescribed as a cure for Apathy)

Shine Shine Shine by Lydia Netzer
This is the story of a woman with alopecia (no hair), who is comfortable in her own skin. She spends some time in a wig trying to fit in with those around her, but feels re-liberated when everyone discovers her secret and likes her for who she is.
(Prescribed for Baldness)

Midnight's Children by Salman Rushdie
Saleem is born on the day India achieves its independence (August 15, 1947), and the story follows both his development and that of his country.
(Recommended reading for Birthday Blues, while pulling an all-nighter on your birthday)

(read 02/2021)

The Spare Room by Helen Garner
A woman offers to let a friend stay with her while undergoing cancer treatment. However, being a caretaker takes a great toll on her. This novel acknowledges that the bystanders suffer along with the patients, and offers a glimpse inside their pain.
(Prescribed when Caring for Someone with Cancer)

(read 12/2015)

The Sickness by Alberto Barrera Tyszka
A doctor diagnoses his father with cancer, and battles with the right time and place to tell him.
(Prescribed when Caring for Someone with Cancer)

A Monster Calls by Patrick Ness
A boy is teased and bullied because his mother has cancer.
(Also Prescribed when Caring for Someone with Cancer)

The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupery
I have read this novella before, but I was struck by what they had to say about it: "If you lived on a planet as small as the Little Prince's planet, Asteroid B-612 - so small that if you took a herd of elephants there you'd have to pile them on top of one another; so small that you'd have to take great care, after you'd finished washing and dressing each morning, to dig out any baobab shoots that had appeared overnight lest they take over your planet; so small that one day you watched the sunset forty-four times, just by moving your chair - you'd be living a simple life that would instil in you the habit of carefulness. You would water the one flower that grew on your planet every day, and never forget. You would take the trouble, before you went away on a trip, to rake out your volcanoes, even the extinct one. Because you would know that it's the time and care you spend on things that make them important. And if you didn't take this care, you'd wake up one day to find that everything around you was sad, feeling as unimportant as you made it feel."
(Prescribed as a cure for Carelessness)

The Birth of Love by Joanna Kavenna
This book deals with a modern woman having a baby, a past scientists discovering that infant mortality had often been caused by doctors not washing their hands, and a future society where people are bred in captivity and their eggs are harvested at age 18.
(Prescribed to accompany Childbirth)

(read 11/2020)

So Long, See You Tomorrow by William Maxwell
Two best friends and neighbours have a falling-out, and this book addresses both points of view and the grief caused by the lost friendship.
(Prescribed for Falling Out With Your Best Friend)

The Debt to Pleasure by John Lanchester
This book slows us down to consider the glory of food.
(Prescribed as a cure for Gluttony)

The Pearl by John Steinbeck
A poor couple finds a valuable pearl, but the sudden riches threaten to destroy them.
(Prescribed to prevent Greed)

Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Of course I've heard of this book, but here is a plot summary that will probably be helpful when I get around to reading it: Rodion Romanovich Raskolnikov murders an old woman for her money (justifying this because of her employment as a pawnbroker). He ends up killing her sister too when she gets in the way, and he takes their money. He is soon filled with remorse. When another person confesses to the crime and lets Rodion off the hook, this does not clear his conscience.
(Prescribed to address Guilt)

Little Children by Tom Perrotta
A young stay-at-home mom is bored by the limited scope of conversation between young mothers, so she pretends to doing a sociological study on these women, to assure herself she is not merely one of them.
(Prescribed for Being a Housewife)

(read 12/2015)

I'm Not Stiller by Max Frisch
Everyone - including his wife - recognises James is a missing sculptor named Anatol, everyone except himself. "As the truth gradually emerges, we are given a rare glimpse into the fragility of our relationship to ourselves."
(Prescribed to address Identity Crisis)

Atmospheric Disturbances by Rivka Galchen
In this book, a man believes that the woman posing as his wife is not really her - she has been replaced by a look-alike (although she denies it). "It hints a the constructed nature of identity. On some level, all of us must invent who we are."
(Prescribed to address Identity Crisis)

New Finnish Grammar by Diego Marani
A badly-beaten man awakes to discover he has no memories, no idea who he is, and no language. He wears a Finnish nametag, so someone begins to re-teach him Finnish. "But what if this man wasn't really Finnish in the first place? What will he become in a different language? What is it that makes him himself?" I am fascinated by the idea that the language we speak affects who we are.
(Also Prescribed to address Identity Crisis)
(read 12/2015)

Pobby and Dingan by Ben Rice
This is the story (set in Australia) of a young girl who has two imaginary friends named Pobby and Dingan. Her brother mocks her for this, but when she says her friends have died and becomes ill from the resulting grief, he plays along with her former fantasies and puts up "Lost" signs for her invisible friends.
(Prescribed as a cure for Being Judgemental)

Tales of the City by Armistead Maupin
Described as "as close to watching TV as literature gets," this book and its sequels sound like a feel-good saga of San Francisco friendship, reminding me of Friends, Three's Company, How I Met Your Mother, etc.
(Prescribed to aid with Loneliness)
(read 01/2020)

Please Look After Mom by Kyung-Sook Shin
An elderly Korean woman gets lost in the big city while visiting her children.  This book illustrates South Korea's rural life, and the generational gap growing between rural parents and their urban children.
(Prescribed to explore Being Lost)

Prep by Curtis Sittenfeld
A Midwest girl attends an upscale East Coast boarding school. The culture shift is drastic enough that  she doesn't entirely understand her surroundings: not only does she lack knowledge and vocabulary that are natural to those around her, but she doesn't know what counts as being polite in this new setting. "As she learns, manners don't exist in a vacuum; they're determined by where you are, what you're doing, and what sort of people you find yourself among. When it comes to manners, context is all."
(Prescribed to address Bad Manners)
(read 09/2021)

The Enchanted April by Elizabeth Von Arnim
A number of women in the 1920s, strangers who are unsatisfied in their married lives, take a holiday together in the Mediterranean. As they relax and grow, they begin to appreciate what waits for them back at home.
(Prescribed for Being Married)

Remainder by Tom McCarthy
A man loses his memory after a knock on the head. He seems to still have language skills, but simple tasks like eating seem foreign to him. "Remainder toys with the philosophical question of what really makes us who we are. Our memories, the novel suggests, resemble fluid archival footage in our heads, which we change and reconstruct over the years into a story that usefully explains who we were and, more important, who we are now. We are constantly losing old memories and acquiring new ones. Identity may be memory, but if so, identity is also in flux."
(Prescribed to discuss Memory Loss)

The Blue Flowers by Penelope Fitzgerald
Although there wasn't much about the plot that drew me in, but this is supposed to be a very smart, well-written book.
(Prescribed to cure Mental Stagnation)

The Man Who Planted Trees by Jean Giono
This is a peaceful book about a man who plants trees around his house in France, intended to combat stress with a slower pace of life and the dignity of manual labour.

The Snow Child by Eowyn Ivey
A barren couple yearning for a child build a little snowman - who comes to life! This sounds like a charming, serious version of Frosty the Snowman.
(Prescribed to battle Sweating)
(read 02/2015)

Suggestions of things to record in a Reading Journal: "Dedicate one page to each book you read, and on the day you turn the last page write down the book's title and author, the date, and the place you read it. You might like to sum up the story in one headline-grabbing line: man murders pawnbroker, feels guilty for next five hundred pages, for example. Or you might opine at length on the motivations of a character you found particularly intriguing. You might also want to make a note of how the book left you feeling - uplifted or downhearted? Like taking a walk on the windy moors, or emigrating to New Zealand? If words don't come easily, use images to summarise your feelings, or give it marks out of ten, or write a list of words that you found in the book and liked.

The Ten Best Novels for Thirtysomethings
London Fields by Martin Amis
The Tenant of Wildfell Hall by Anne Bronte
Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides (read 05/2018)
The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemmingway
The Best of Everything by Rona Jaffe
Of Human Bondage by W. Somerset Maugham
The Rector's Daughter by F. M. Mayor
Miss Mackenzie by Anthony Trollope
All the King's Men by Robert Penn Warren

And a thought-provoking consideration of Procrastination:
"Why do today what can be left undone until tomorrow? Because every day that you leave a task undone it grows bigger and the motivation for doing it gets smaller.
Procrastination, or the art of avoidance, has nothing whatsoever to do with laziness, or even busyness. Its causes are emotional. Quite simply (and, one could argue, quite sensibly), the procrastinator avoids those tasks which, consciously or subconsciously, he associates with uncomfortable emotions, such as boredom, anxiety, or fear of failure. The problem with allowing an uncomfortable emotion to stand in your way is that, once avoided, tasks that were probably quite achievable to begin with grow larger both in our imaginations - and, often, in actuality - until they loom over us in such an oppressive way that they become worth procrastinating about. And while we're busy procrastinating and avoiding those uncomfortable emotions, untold opportunities for happiness and success - whole lives, in fact - pass by.
By procrastinating, you are allowing your negative emotions to become obstacles to an otherwise productive and forward-flowing life. Whether it's anxiety or fear that accompanies the contemplation of the task at hand, put out that hand and greet your emotions one by one. Invite them to come in and sit down, and make themselves comfortable. Then begin your task in their company. Once you begin, you'll find they don't hang around very long; in fact, they'll probably get up and leave immediately. And when you're close to finishing, you'll look up and discover far more pleasant emotional companions sitting in their place, waiting to celebrate with you when you're done."

Books Read - Fall 2013

17. You: The Owner's Manual by Michael Roizen and Mehmet Oz (audio book; abridged)
16. The World is Flat by Thomas L. Friedman (audio book)
15. Bernice Bobs Her Hair by F. Scott Fitzgerald (audio book)
14. A Wrinkle in Time by Madeline L'Engle (audio book)
13. Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka
12. How We Decide by Jonah Lehrer (audio book)
11. Sophie's World: A Novel About the History of Philosophy by Jostein Gaarder
10. America Again by Stephen Colbert
9. The Book of Negroes by Lawrence Hill
8. Micro by Michael Crichton (audio book)
7. Time Now for the Vinyl Cafe Story Exchange by Stuart McLean
6. Overdressed: The Shockingly High Cost of Cheap Fashion by Elizabeth L Cline
5. Phantom by Terry Goodkind (audio book)
4. Klee Wyck by Emily Carr
3. Flight Behaviour by Barbara Kingsolver
2. 100 Cupboards by N.D. Wilson
1. The Book of Small by Emily Carr

Books Read - Summer 2013

21. The Independence of Miss Mary Bennet by Colleen McCullough
20. The Street Lawyer by John Grisham
19. Unless by Carol Shields
18. I Beat the Odds: From Homelessness to The Blind Side by Michael Oher (audio book)
17. The Tales of Troy and Greece by Andrew Lang
16. The Good Earth by Pearl S. Buck (audio book)
15. The Best of Me by Nicholas Sparks
14. Drop Dead Healthy by A.J. Jacobs
13. The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry by Rachel Joyce
12. Insight City Guides: Seattle
11. The Turn of the Screw by Henry James (audio book)
10. Elliott Allagash by Simon Rich (audio book)
9. Animal Farm by George Orwell (audio book)
8. Planet Boy by Stuart McLean (audio book)
7. The Keeper of Lost Causes by Jussi Adler-Olsen
6. Canada by Richard Ford
5. The Little Giant of Aberdeen County by Tiffany Baker (audio book)
4. The Complete Idiot's Guide to American History by Alan Axelrod
3. The Man in the Iron Mask by Alexandre Dumas (audio book)
2. The Tenant of Wildfell Hall by Anne Bronte (audio book)
1. The Vikings by Yves Cohat

Recognizing

It's really wonderful when you can feel a cool breeze blow through the window into your hot house.  Yay!

Sigh

Tonight I wrote a long entry, about starting a 30 day yoga challenge and being in a downswing.  I wasn't able to save along the way because I didn't have Internet access, and by the time I got home everything had been erased. Alas.
I don't have the energy to rewrite it, so I think I'll just go play some more Snoopy Roller Coaster.

Books Read - Spring 2013

15. Food and Friends: Recipes and Memories from Simca's Cuisine by Simone Beck
14. Language Shock: Understanding the Culture of Conversation by Michael Agar
13. The Partner by John Grisham
12. The Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett
11. French Women Don't Get Fat by Mureille Guiliano
10. Blueberry Muffin Murder by Joanne Fluke
9. Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
8. Memoirs of a Geisha by Arthur Golden
7. Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother by Amy Chua
6. Beijing Confidential by Jan Wong
5. The Wisdom of the Shire by Noble Smith
4. Chinese Whiskers by Pallavi Aiyar
3. Travels by Michael Crichton
2. A Time to Kill by John Grisham
1. Here's Looking at Euclid by Alex Bellos

Books Read - Winter 2013

18. Frontiers of Heaven by Stanley Stewart
17. The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood
16. The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie by Muriel Sparks
15. Berlitz Handbook: China
14. Bad Habits by Dave Barry
13. The Happiness Project by Gretchen Rubin
12. The Solitude of Prime Numbers by Paolo Giordano
11. China's First Emperor and his Terracotta Warriors by Frances Wood
10. Silas Marner by George Eliot
9. Lost on Planet China by J. Maarten Troost
8. The Devil and Miss Prym by Paulo Coelho
7. China A to Z by May-lee Chai and W Chai
6. Sophie's Choice by William Styron (book club selection)
5. National Geographic Traveler: China
4. The Murder of King Tut by James Patterson (audio book)
3. The Fearless Gourmet: Decoding Menus from Around the World by Norman Kolpas
2. The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell
1. Holidays on Ice by David Sedaris (audio book)

Anew

Tonight Boris said to me, "I want you to be my girlfriend." And I said, "My pleasure."
teeheehee!