Epic Adventures with Girls, Girls, Girls

I came across this article in NPR and it got me thinking. http://www.npr.org/2011/05/25/135952459/girls-girls-girls-a-trio-of-epic-adventures?sc=fb&cc=fp. Unlike the author, who gravitated towards reinterpretations of women in the novels, I realised that I often read novels with very strong male characters. I had to ponder deeply before I could recall reading about strong women. There was Nancy Drew, Mary Russell (from Laurie King’s novels of Sherlock Holmes and his wife), Agatha Christie’s Miss Marple, Jo March from Little Women, Jane Eyre, Moll Flanders (yet she was portrayed as a thief, whore, among others), Elizabeth Bennett from Pride and Prejudice, Eowyn from Lord of the Rings perhaps. What strong women characters do you like?

Library Loot

Last evening, my husband and I paid a visit to our local library to borrow a couple of DVDs. I had no intention of borrowing any more books until I was done reading the ones I had back home. But the moment I set my eyes on some of them, my resolve weakened. I wonder if that has ever happened to you.

By the time my husband was done picking out our movies, I had picked out a bunch of reads and was completely satisfied

Here they are, in no particular order:

I had read many online reviews (almost all of them positive) of The Tiger’s Wife by Tea Obreht. The author is 25 years old, and was named by The New Yorker as one of the twenty best American fiction writers under forty. Her novel is set in a Balkan country (Ms Obreht was born in Belgrade),  and from the book jacket, it appears to be about a young doctor who arrives there on a mercy mission  and who must confront a family mystery surrounding the recent death of her grandfather. Sounds promising!

A Discovery of Witches  is part of my ongoing fascination with witches, alchemy and the like. I used to devour Terry Pratchett’s Discworld series and David Eddings’ novels when I was a teenager. But somewhere along the way, I lost interest in the fantasy genre. But after reading numerous blog posts ( I wish I could remember whose ) gushing over Lev Grossman’s The Magicians, I decided to get back into the genre.  A Discovery of Witches is a 559-page novel, about scholar and reluctant witch Diana Bishop who discovers an ancient book bound up by magic. The book is in fact an old alchemical text that was lost for centuries, and its sudden emergence sets forth some underworld stirrings which propels Diana and another scholar cum vampire, Matthew Clairmont into a collision course of magic, sorcery and science.

I had not heard of Laurie King prior to reading about her wonderful novels from Eva’s blog (A Stripped Armchair). I figured if Eva loved her books that much, perhaps I ought to give them a shot too, hence  The Language of Bees The book  is a mystery/suspense novel, featuring Sherlock Holmes and his wife, Mary Russell. I love a good mystery novel, and I adore Sherlock Holmes so it was a great combination! The book is about how Holmes must come face-to-face with his past, and the mystery that unfolds when his son comes to visit him. I’m looking forward to lapping this up

Howard Jacobson’s The Finkler’s Question was a delight to read, so I had no hesitation in picking up The Mighty Walzer. From what I can tell, it’s a coming of age cum autobiographical novel of Oliver Walzer. Oliver is  shy and frightened of women, but guidance from a member of the Table Tennis Team apparently improves his game. (and I’m sure its not just table tennis here ) I love coming of age novels, there’s just something so heartwarming about them, and I’m always rooting for the protagonists!!

I will be honest. The only reason why I picked up The Storyteller of Marrakesh was its cover Admit it, so have you at some point!! lolz. But ok, seriously, I do like the cover. I also enjoy reading works by Indian authors and although I have not read anything by Joydeep Roy-Bhattacharya, I was intrigued by what a Bengali author had to write about a novel that was obviously set in the Islamic world. The book is apparently a mystery surrounding an enigmatic couple that arrives in Jemaa one night, and then disappears. Hassan, a storyteller in Marrakesh, tries to get folks to recall what happened that fateful night in order to absolve his brother, Mustafa, from the crime.  I’m not sure about you but I’m noticing a pattern forming here with my book selections this time around

David Mitchell’s The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet came highly recommended by just about everyone I knew. An old colleague of mine, who coincidentally introduced me to Mitchell’s earlier work, Cloud Atlas, insisted that I had to read his latest work too. For the longest time, it was simply impossible to get hold of The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet. I finally saw it on the shelves that evening! This novel is set in Japan in 1799. The protagonist is Jacob de Zoet, a young clerk who comes to the East to make a fortune so he could win the hand of his wealthy fiancee back in Holland. But circumstances (but of cos!) propel him to another course of action. I did not complete Cloud Atlas, but I certainly liked what I read. So I’m curious about this novel.

I’m gonna briefly share the last two books cos this post is already too long! I’m with Fatty and Twelve steps to A Compassionate Life are what I refer to as my ‘feed the soul’ novels. Every now and then, I like to sit back with a self help novel, mull over what the author shares, reflect and ponder, and have a couple of chuckles and A-HA moments. I’m hoping Karen Armstrong’s Twelve steps to A Compassionate Life would help me to do just that. Meanwhile,  I’m with Fatty  is Edward Ugel’s struggle to lose fifty pounds in fifty “miserable” weeks (lol)! Mr Ugel is a resident blogger for the Huffington Post, and he’s laugh-out-loud funny!

I’m pretty excited about this loot! They look like a really a great bunch of reads, and I’m looking forward to reading all of them, well, at least most of them this weekend!  How about you? Have you got some books for the weekend yet

Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother

This will be a long post cos I just have too much to say about this book  Although I had a couple of books (my last library pick) to complete, I was kinda reluctant to read them. *Horrors*  Don’t get me wrong here, I’m not gonna give up on them. But I felt that perhaps I should give myself a chance to pick up a read that I knew I was gonna enjoy, the infamous Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother,  and hopefully that would give me the impetus to keep reading the others.  And I’m happy to report that it did just that  

 But back to the Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother. The book garnered tremendous (mostly negative) media spotlight on its author, Yale Law Professor Amy Chua for her so-called “Chinese” way of raising her two teenage daughters, Sophia and Lulu. Being an Asian myself, and raised by semi-strict Indian parents, this parenting style was familiar to me. 

The “Chinese” parenting style, as Ms Chua writes it, is a strict, disciplined and rigorous way of ensuring that children turn out successful – i.e. perfect grades, music prodigies, maths whizes. Her kids for instance, were never allowed to receive any grade below an A except for gym and drama, watch TV or play computer games, have a playdate, attend a sleepover or choose their own extracurricular activity.  Ms Chua also has a bit of  a temper – calling her younger daughter “garbage” at one point, and returning back the birthday cards her 2 children made for her because she felt they could have done a better job with them. BTW, the daughters made some new birthday cards, and Ms Chua writes that she has kept them to this  day!  Beyond the strict regime that she has set up for her 2 daughters to abide by: violin practice for Lulu, piano practice for Sophia, concerts to attend, practices even when the family went on vacations, the book appears to also bring back home some hard truths, much to the chargin of Ms Chua. For one, it shows how all  kids cannot be raised identically, and parenting skills need to be adapted towards each child. A case in point is Ms Chua’s own children. Her eldest, Sophia, was by all accounts, far easier to raise in the “Chinese” way than Lulu, who put up huge tantrums when her mother forced her to practice the violin and questioned Ms Chua constantly. Lulu eventually got her way with Ms Chua (I won’t tell you how & why – u just have to read it ).

Ms Chua had much flak thrown at her after the book was published, most of which was harsh criticism of her parenting style and her all-sweeping statements that the “Chinese” way of parenting was superior to the “Western” parenting style.  To her credit, Ms Chua does say at some point early in the book that she was generalising as she knew of Western parents who were strict with their kids too. But I do agree that when one starts to make comparisons of parenting styles and claim superiority with one style, it gets personal. No parent wants to be told that their parenting skills are lacking.

I’m not about to comment on Ms Chua as a parent or her parenting skills, primarily because I’m in no position to comment on matters that I know next to nothing about.  What I do know is how I was raised by my semi-strict Indian parents and grandparents, and how grateful I’m (on hindsight ) for the way they brought me up.

First off, I’m an only child, so I was born into pressure!!  We stayed at my grandparents (Mum wanted to be close to her parents and felt it was her filial responsibility to take care of them, and Dad liked them alot! ) and our home was surrounded by books, Reader’s Digests, encyclopedias, magazines and newspapers. My grandparents were voracious readers. My parents, when they came back from work, read all the time.  From the time I was young, I was always told that reading, getting good grades in school and eventually getting into university (college here) was of paramount importance.

I lucked out cos I loved to learn. Yeah, go figure! I enjoyed school, I loved to read, teachers seemed to like me, and I had really great friends. And I was competitive. Really competitive. I always wanted to get the best grades in class. I remember being 7 years old and coming back home with my mid-terms grades. I scored 97/100.  A great score you might say. Not for my parents. Mum made me stand in the corner of the bedroom I shared with them, and caned me three times – each time for a mark lost. I lost the 3 marks  to a careless mistake, so mum had to punish me. Her rationale was simple: You could have received 100 marks had you not been careless. If you lost the marks because you didn’t know the questions, I would not have caned you. I did point out to her that in fact,  I had topped the class, but Mum was not having any of that.

Dad never caned me but he was strict too, in his own way. I was in university and managed to get into the Scholar’s Programme. That was a really proud moment for me – getting into the elite programme. I enjoyed the courses that we had to take as part of the programme, but one particular course – a computing one – had me stumped. I hated it mostly because I could never do well enough for it. I studied very hard for the final exams and managed to scrap an A- for the class. Needless to say, I was pretty esctatic. I came home and showed the grade to my parents. Mum was pleased. She knew how hard I had worked for the exam, and computing was hardly my forte. It was a whole new language to me! Dad looked at my grade, and instead asked me why I didn’t get an A or A+  ?!  His reasoning was this: If you could get an A-, it means you must have been close enought to get an A. 

Growing up, my parents never brought me to dance or drama lessons. They were focused on being practical, so they enrolled me for computing courses where I learnt Java and HTML, and typing and shorthand courses. No sleepovers either. Their reasoning was almost identical to what Ms Chua gave her daughters: Why would you want to sleep in another home when you have your own to sleep at?  I had strict curfews too, almost all of which I rebeled against. But I learnt very quickly that if I listened to my parents the first time round, they were more likely to be lenient if I broke the curfew hours the next night

My parents have always been over-protective, more so since I’m an only child but more on that in awhile. But beyond the tough parenting, they also instilled in me a tremendous sense of independence. Mum pushed me to work and earn my own pocket money from the time I could work at 18. I still remember her pouring through the Saturday’s Classifieds, and circling potential vacation jobs I could take up. Every school vacation break, I would work, save up and buy my own stuff.  I taught english and literature tuition, worked at university libraries, did tele-marketing, freelance writing and worked for a self-help community organisation. I also volunteered with a couple of local drama groups. When I started whining that my friends were enjoying their vacation break, my parents never forgot to remind me that they started working at 16 and put their way through school the hard way. So I have it easy, said Mum. It was tough love. Yet at every one of these jobs, not a day went past without my parents calling me every couple of hours to inquire if I was alrite. I told you I would get back to the over-protectiveness bit

I’m 30 years old now. And I think I turned out pretty alrite – a little high-strung perhaps and incredibly restless, but nothing too bad :) Reading this book made me think of how I would raise my kids when I have them. Would I raise them the way my parents did with me? Honestly, I’m not sure. But one thing I’m sure off: I owe my parents the world, and I’m forever grateful for them

Library pick-ups

Sorry, I took a blogging break for the past couple of weeks. Suddenly, it seemed there were tons of things to do around the house, and friends to visit and stay over for the weekend that it just made it impossible to read, much less blog

But all’s well now. I finally  made a trip to the library over the weekend and got myself a couple of books I have been wanting to get my hands on for awhile now Hurray!  So Cleopatra: A Life by Stacy Schiff was one of those books I had read rave reviews on (check out the New York Times review of the book (http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/02/books/02book.html)  and since one of my goals for the year was to explore new genres, I picked it up without any  hesitation. I’m one of those people who gets easily seduced by a really nice book cover, and this  book’s was just lovely!! So it got extra points from me!! How easy it is to please me  

I was not aware of the next book, but when I saw it at my library’s ‘New Books’ shelf, I had to have it. The Pale King was David Foster Wallace’s last (and unfinished) work before he died in 2008. I enjoyed reading Mr Wallace’s Brief Interviews with Hideous Men when a friend bought it for me as a gift many years back. Since then , I have wanted to read his other books, but for some reason,  he fell under my radar. So I was pretty excited when I saw this novel. Mr Wallace is often described as a literary genius, and although I have only read one of his books, I would tend to agree with the description.  The book jacket promises that The Pale King grapples with “questions of life’s meaning and of the value of work and society”, and “suggests a new idea of heroism”. Intriguing!   

And finally, in keeping with my goal of the year to try new genres, I picked up a copy of An Anthropologist on Mars: Seven paradoxical tales by Oliver Sacks. A neurologist by training, he writes stories on science and medicine in a way that (persumably) makes them easily understood by the layman. I admit, I have always been intimidated by books on science. But after browsing through some book blogs and reading some wonderful reviews on Mr Sacks’ books, I decided to plunge right in. I’m keeping my reservations about this book for now. I guess I’m still not convinced yet, but  I hope to be proven wrong

And that’s all guys for my library pick-ups today. Do come by and let me know your suggestions on any books that I should read Hope you have a great week ahead!

Women, Food and God

 

 I knew of this book from watching Oprah (there- the truth is out!! ), plus the title was just waaaayy too interesting for me to not pick it up! I read this book in one sitting, which is saying quite a bit for me since I have a really short attention span! Ms Roth writes in a really entertaining manner, as if she’s having a personal conversation with you, the reader. The premise of the book, as I read into it, seems to be that what you eat tells you much more than just your relationship with food. It’s essentially an insight into your relationship with yourself, with others, and with spirituality and all things that make you in awe of life (God). 

It’s not an unheard off premise. If you are an ardent Oprah viewer (like me ), you would know by now that your weight and relationship with food is more about how you view yourself than about food (and your willpower)! The difference though is that Ms Roth writes very convincingly, and the fact that she battled with yo-yo dieting, losing almost 1,000 pounds and later on the brink of suicide over her weight, lends her immense credibility when she writes about the struggles with the weighing scale.

Women, Food and God asks readers to consider throwing away the dreaded word “DIET”. Instead, Ms Roth asks those struggling with weighty issues to consider WHY they are eating. Cld it be to numb certain feelings?  Ms Roth suggests that conquering these issues lie in loving oneself, flaws and all.  Becoming kinder to oneself.  It wasn’t so much of a revelation to me.Intellectually, these were ideas or concepts that I was aware off. But Ms Roth has a way of writing that connected with me emotionally, and that made alot of difference!

What really connected with me was when Ms Roth wrote that many women think that once they reached a certain number on the weighing scale, they would be happier and their lives would become better. I have often thought that once I reached the magic number 53, I would be happier. But reading Ms Roth made me realise that this was wishful thinking.  Ms Roth suggests instead that the key to handling your weight is to be more mindful of your emotions, thoughts and feelings. Eat when you are hungry, she writes. Sounds easy, but it’s not! Trust me, I tried it!!

What I really liked abt Women, Food and God is that it’s not just another book offering a magic diet that will shave off pounds! Instead it’s a book that synthesizes ideas that will enable you to get to the root cause of your weight gain. Bottomline, it made sense to me. Two-thumbs up!

Book Quote

Books let us into their souls and lay open to us the secrets of our own. ~William Hazlitt

A book blog that I especially love is Eva’s The Striped Armchair. Pls check out her blog at http://astripedarmchair.wordpress.com. She has a wonderful little section of book quotes, and I love it!! It served as great inspiration to me & I wanted to do one on my blog too. Thanks Eva

 

 

The Fran Lebowitz Reader

  I did not know much about Fran Lebowitz until a couple of years ago when I read  that Martin Scorsese was doing a documentary film on her. And when the legendary filmmaker makes a film about someone, of cos my interest was piqued! So when I came across The Fran Lebowitz Reader , I was intrigued, particularly when the book jacket came with The Washington Post declaring her the funniest woman in America. And after reading it, I must add on to wht the Post said – Ms Lebowitz is probably the funniest AND smartest woman in America! LOLz

The book is a compilation of Ms Lebowitz’s tongue-in-cheek commentaries on contemporary urban life, trends, fashions, morals and people from 2 of her previous works: On Metropolitan Life and On Social Studies.  For instance, with trademark deadpan humour, she writes a guide for those considering to be a pope, a social climber and heiress in the chapter Vocational Guidance for the Truly Ambitious. HIGH-larious!!

I find it especially entertaining when Ms Lebowitz passes her “observations” on people and fashions. In the chapter A World View, she talks about a visit to Italy. On Milan, she writes: ” There are two kinds of people in Milan. The people who work for  the various Vogues and the people who don’t” , while on Rome, she says: “In Rome, people spend most of their time having lunch. And they do it very well – Rome is unquestionably the lunch capital of the world”.   HA!

Her humorous take on Los Angeles, its culture and people (“A great many people  in LA are on special diets that restrict their intake of synthetic foods. The reason for this appears to be a widely held belief that organically grown fruits and vegetables make the cocaine work faster”) reflect her deft take on social commentary, as only a humourist can.

The subject matters Ms Lebowitz touches on are wide ranging, so I found the ones that I liked and read those. Topics like space voyage for instance were so far beyond me that I skipped them completely. On the plus side, even if you skip those chapters, its ok because there will be plenty more chapters that will keep you occupied. I also found sections of the book that seemed long.  But all in all, the pluses far outweigh the negatives.  I would definitely recommend giving this book a read, if nothing else but to get a chuckle or two while reading Ms Lebowitz’s smart take on contemporary social issues.