yong : book 8/25 : Teacher Man by Frank McCourt

What do you do next when you're a retired high school English teacher and your first book is Angela's Ashes, a New-York-Times-best-selling, Pulitzer-Prize-winning, literary-world-by-storm-taking phenomenon? Any book that follows is pretty much doomed to fall short. Nay, laddy, yer wrong there. The doom lies not in the failing. 'Tis in this: that knowing that full well, yer doomed to try anyways.

It's Irish. It's human. It's foolish. And it's courageous.

In a foolish way.

And so our hapless author continued his memoirs in his second book, 'Tis, landing in America, working menial jobs, enlisting in the army, talking his way into teachers' college even though he'd never finished high school--never even entered high school. But I didn't read that book.

Instead, I jumped straight to this his third book, because I'm a teacher in training, and I really wanted to read about the following thirty years of his life as a teacher in the public high schools of New York City. Try to find out more about what I'm getting myself into, what thirty years of the teaching life was like for one person. He spent ten years at two vocational high schools, struggling with discipline, not sure if he was making any difference in these kids' lives, feeling like a moderate failure. He tried a year of teaching at a community college, found that discouraging for different reasons. Couldn't find a job for a while and floundered in substitute teaching limbo. And then somehow found himself at Stuyvesant High, surrounded by bright kids, and thriving.

As a book, it's okay. Some of the personal anecdotes are really touching. But his disconnected narrative style, which worked well in Ashes as a needed buffer from the grueling desperation of Limerick's slums, backfires here by distancing the reader too far from the less visceral, more cerebral crises of mid-life. These emotions need to be amplified, not muted.

But as a reflection on a life of teaching, it's invaluable as a uniquely honest, introspective, self-doubting perspective. I'm not sure if it makes me more or less confident of teaching as a career choice. That someone could be teacher-of-the-year at a magnet school after having spent the first ten years of his career wondering if he had any business even being a teacher, is pretty sobering. That, along with a couple other stories I've recently heard, makes me wonder what power we teachers have at all to help the kids who need it most, versus the ones who would do well regardless.

Mind you, this book isn't just for teachers. For anyone who's ever been a student--and that's every single one of you--McCourt offers the best vicarious glimpse I've yet read of what it's like to be on the other side of that podium or teacher's desk. And it's not at all like you imagine.

And I'm glad to have read it.

swingbeat: 17/26: A Feast for Crows by George R. R. Martin

Wow, finished this book, the fourth one in the Song of Ice and Fire series. Like Bridget, I've been following this series (best sci-fi/fantasy series ever).

However, this last book wasn't as good as I was hoped. The series has become too complicated to worry about the minutiae of minor characters. There are characters that I've forgotten ever reading about, and they're mentioned without so much as a gratuitous flashback.

The pre-published version of this book was too big, so Martin divided it up into two separate novels; the next one will be published later this year. The next book "A Dance of Dragons" will deal with a whole set of characters separate from those in this book, and the storyline will take place at hthe same time. So when I finished the book, I felt that there wasn't anything to look forward to. It was like, "Well, I just finished half the story, and now the next book won't even continue from where it left off. TFortunately he didn't leae that big of a cliffhanger to frustrate me, but it's still annoying.

I'm beginning to feel that he's just putting in words without really advancing the story that much - kinda annoying.

Anyway, that's my view on this book.

yong : book 7/25 : Angela's Ashes by Frank McCourt

Imagine deciding to write a book after retiring from thirty years teaching English in New York high schools. Imagine this first book going on to win the Pulitzer Prize. Frank McCourt's memoir about growing up in Limerick, Ireland, is a coming of age story unlike any you've ever heard before. It's a coming of age story that takes place in abject poverty. If you have a bleeding heart, stories like this are its reason for being. If your heart is stone, this is a story that can squeeze blood from it.

Yes, it's heartbreaking. Yes, it's sometimes difficult to find the motivation to keep reading, keep subjecting yourself to this stark world, when it's so much more pleasant to be surrounded by the luxuries and creature comforts of your own. But that's why we read in the first place, to experience vicariously those parts of life, of being human, that we might never encounter in our own lives, to flesh out the whole, to give us perspective and broaden our understanding of what it means to be human, of what it means to live. We sit here in the comfort of our warm apartments and offices, idly staring at the glow of our computer monitors, and we would find it hard to live without something as basic as high speed internet. As basic as high speed internet. We, you and I, have no idea what it means to be hungry, truly hungry. Not a foggy clue. Frank McCourt gives us a chance to experience that. A chance to experience what it means to be truly cold, not just for the five minutes you have to be outside before you can duck into someplace warm, because there is no place warm to duck into. A chance to be homeless, to not have shelter, or not much of one. A chance to be poor. And to see it all through a child's eyes, without self-pity, just as a matter of fact. And to sometimes be able to laugh at it. And to sometimes be able to rise above it.

KAYAN : Book 3/26 : Travels with Charley - In Search of America by John Steinbeck

I dare say John Steinbeck and I share a particular kind of jetset restlessness that would make a man order a custom car, name it Rocinante, and take a roadtrip across America with his sidekick, a French poodle named Charley. (Throw all your poodle-prejudices out the window right now.) For me, that restlessness took me to Africa. But it's the same thing. People like us are enchanted with the idea of going/being anywhere-but-here. That enchantment can strike anytime. I think that's why I love airports so much: it's the one place that embodies the feeling of going somewhere.

Steinbeck uses delicious words to create paintings of the landscape of America: from the crisp cold frost of Maine, to the howls of Badlands, to the majesty of the California redwoods, to the oven that is the Mojave desert. However, it is not landscape which satisfies; it's the people. From roadside diners, to truck stops, to a Texas ranch; it's the mindset, the differences, and the commonalities of a people that define this country, even if that commonality is sometimes apathy.

As an added bonus: Steinbeck has revealed the best pickup line to dig into the psyche of America: "Would you like a cup of coffee?" And Charley rocks as the sidekick dog. I'll have to read more Steinbeck - he's awesome. Thanks to s.no.2 for the book.

Recommended
Beverage pairing: Lemonade (not pink)

swingbeat: 16/26: The Number by Alex Berenson

Recommended.

This book's subtitle is, boringly, "How the Drive for Quarterly Earnings Corrupted Wall Street and Corporate America". Whew! I picked up this book because I read about it on Mark Cuban's blog, and he highly recommended it. It's pretty good, with some potentially boring accounting history somewhere in there.

The author is a New York Times financial reporter. His writing flows well, and his thesis comes through quite clearly:
1. Accounting firms are corrupt and lobby to prevent regulation.
2. The SEC is powerless
3. President Bush prevents securities reform
4. Executives make way too much money, think about themselves, and are greedy.
5. Analysts are in bed with the companies they analyzed because of their investment banking ties.

He provides many examples of the above statements, and it's quite disheartening for any small investor. For example, I knew about Worldcom, Enron and other scandals at a high level, but I wasn't privy to the details. He illustrates the corruption and greed behind the executives' actions. And he also points fingers at the accounting firms that did the auditing, how they are supposed to be independent, but they get too cozy.

Lots of this stuff I knew, it's always nice to hear how rampant the corruption is, and the effects.

Anywayz, it's a pretty good book, if you're interested in hearing about the bubble bust from a guy who was reporting on it, this is it. Mark Cuban endorses way more than I do :)!

swingbeat: 15/26: The Samurai's Garden by Gail Tsukiyama

Recommended.

This book was pretty short and once you get into it, it flows by easily. It's about a young man recovering from an illness who moves from Hong Kong to his family's vacation home in Japan, during World War II. He meets the caretaker of the house as well as the comings and going in that little town, Tarumi. It's supposed to be about how his life is changed after meeting certain people and living life in this area. I couldn't actually see this though, he seemed the same throughout the whole book :). But regardless, this short tale is just a good story, and I enjoyed it.

Rich (6/26): Snow Falling on Cedars by David Guterson.

Ten years after the conclusion of World War II, a Japanese man is on trial for the murder of a fellow fisherman in a small coastal Washington town. Racism, war, love, sex, murder, a sherlock holmes mystery and the ensuing trial -- this book has it all. It starts out promising, too. The backdrop is laid out well, and I felt attached to this small fishing community. Each character is introduced with complete family history and dental records. But, once the cast is set and the story gets going, the plot isn't terribly intriguing, and the characters aren't as rich and complex as we'd expect from their elaborate introduction. And like spending a summer night with good friends, watching a movie starring the in-celebrity of the month, reading this book is a pleasant way to spend the evening, but altogether pretty ordinary.

Rich (5/26): "A Year in Provence" by Peter Mayle.

A year in the French countryside. I'd get bored in about a month, I'd guess. No work, and the highlight of your week is that meal that you had to travel an hour and a half to get to. But, incredibly, Peter Mayle makes his first year in France sound like paradise without any sentimental, preachy rhetoric. In fact, we, the readers, don't know if he has a day job, nor do we know his wife's name. What he does describe is simply wonderful. Without gloating or winking, he enraptures the reader with tales as simple as their dining experience with the elderly couple who politely insist on what wine goes best with their meal. He recounts how his neighbors help him grow grapes and his angst at the contractors that are creating their own masterpiece of heating ductwork in his house. These small tales certainly have a French backdrop, but they are really about community and neighbors and hospitality. Simply delightful.

Bridget: 18/26: The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime by Mark Haddon

Stats: 240pp. Not sure what you would call the genre so I will just call it fiction.

I actually finished this book a couple of weeks ago but had to do the Christmas travelling thing.

This was a great book! I didn't know what to expect at first because the first chapter was actually chapter two. The narrator of the story doesn't leave you wonder what happened to chapter one for too long. He just decided that since this was his book and he could compose it anyway he wanted... he would use prime numbers to number his chapters.

I definitely think that this book would appeal to a wide variety of readers. The main character has a moderate form of autism. He is brilliant with math but has some behavioral issues which put him in a special school for kids with extra needs. At the start of the book, he encounters the aftermath of a crime and decides to investigate the crime while writing a book about findings. I couldn't help but get sucked into this book because the main character is so likable and because the writer of the book is really witty. There were times when I couldn't help but laugh out loud because of some of the things the main character says.

Highly recommended. I even went out and bought it for someone for Christmas!

yong : book 6/25 : Jimmy Corrigan: The Smartest Kid On Earth by Chris Ware

Think about that title for a second. And think about everything you associate with graphic novels and comic books. You probably have some kind of expectation of the kind of story you'd find in such a book. I certainly did. I couldn't have been more wrong.

There are no superheroes in this book, though there are sad people who dress up like one. There are no superpowers, no fantasies, except in the pitiful brief daydreams that punctuate Jimmy's even more pitiful real life. There isn't even a kid. Jimmy Corrigan is thirty-six years old, balding, socially inept, and his mother still calls him every day at work from the nursing home. The title is all irony, and not the funny kind, but the bitter kind.

The story is about the essential, inherent loneliness of the human condition. It's about growing up without a father, growing up in an adopted family, the parents who leave such kids behind. There is profanity, but it has never seemed more harsh; as "Munich" does for violence, this book does for profanity: strips it bare of all glorification, all satisfaction, all guilty pleasure, leaving only its core ugliness for our gawking eyes to take in.

It's a harsh reality that Chris Ware presents, but it's also a harsh reality that many people live every day. That he manages to find in it bits of redemption, of hope, of beauty, both visual and emotional... Graphic novel is a term usually pasted onto glorified comic books. This is a groundbreaking work that actually deserves it.

(Setting: Requested this book through the library after tagging along with Kayan and Rich to a talk a couple months back by Chris Ware and an NPR guy...Ira Glass. Picked it up today despite steady rain and spent the day reading (and writing this) rather than working on the wedding toast I have to give in a week. --y, 9:55p, 12/30)

[You can take a look inside the book at Amazon here.]

[Or you can zoom in and explore the mess on my desk instead. Thanks again for the monitor, Kayan. And happy new year, everyone. :) ]