GIRL IN TRANSLATION

Girl In Translation by Jean Kwok - This was the book I'd been waiting for! Once begun, I couldn't put it down. It's the story of Kimberly, who moves from Hong Kong to America with her mom. Her evil aunt gives them a job in her sweatshop, and arranges for them to live in an unheated apartment in an abandoned building in a terrible neighborhood. I don't want to say one more thing about this book. I absolutely loved it, and hope that you will, too. It's a story of surviving in America in the 1970s or 80s. I chose this one off the book club shelf at the library based on the cover, title and blurb. Although the last few books I've read were enjoyable, this one surpassed expectations. Let me know if you loved it as much as I did.

THE VIOLIN OF AUSCHWITZ

The Violin of Auschwitz by Maria Angels Anglada - This is a really good book. If you are a violinist or luthier, this story might hold a special interest for you. (Did you know that a luthier is someone who makes and repairs stringed instruments?) It's a small novel, but a big story....not overly dramatic (it was originally written in Catalan, and this is a translation) but very engaging. The story of a woman named Regina, a man named Daniel and a man named Bronislaw. I got up early this morning to finish the book, then the phone rang, so I went into my office to talk to Susan and check my email, Scrabble, etc, and when I'd finally finished that so that I could go back and read the book, I was freezing. Freezing. So I crept under Peter's covers since he was at school and his room is the warmest, and as I was reading, I thought about what it would have been like to be a prisoner in a concentration camp. I think I could have handled the lack of food, the rude treatment, maybe even some amount of torture. The thing that would have gotten me would have been the cold. All each person has to do in the world is to never hurt any other person, and we'd be so much better.

INVICTUS

Invictus - Excellent. Invictus is a movie starring Morgan Freeman as Nelson Mandela shortly after he became president of South Africa. Matt Damon plays the captain of the South African Rugby team. There is so much here, that I wouldn't know where to begin. See this for the history, for the biography of Mandela, for the positive message of peace and reconciliation that Mandela promoted with every move he made.
The word invictus means unconquered or undefeated. It is also a poem of inspiration, quoted by Mandela/Freeman in the movie:

| Invictus

Out of the night that covers me, Black as the Pit from pole to pole, I thank whatever gods may be For my unconquerable soul. In the fell clutch of circumstance I have not winced nor cried aloud. Under the bludgeonings of chance My head is bloody, but unbowed. Beyond this place of wrath and tears Looms but the Horror of the shade, And yet the menace of the years Finds, and shall find, me unafraid. It matters not how strait the gate, How charged with punishments the scroll. I am the master of my fate: I am the captain of my soul. William Ernest Henley

I REMEMBER NOTHING * THE UNCOMMON READER

I Remember Nothing by Nora Ephron - You can't go wrong with Nora. She'll be writing fresh and fun when she's 100, and we can all not remember it together. These short funny personal stories seem even funnier than her previous books, but who really remembers? My favorite is the story about meeting people who you know you know, may or may not remember how you know them, know that you may have spent a whole weekend with them at some point, but still can't remember them.


The Uncommon Reader A Novella by Alan Bennett - There's nothing for it, really. The queen stumbles onto the library on wheels, meets a lowly young cook from the royal kitchen, picks up a book and soon becomes a reader. So what this tiny little read is about, is about reading. It's highly enjoyable, but for me, sad to say, went nowhere at the end. Nevertheless, if one is a reader, all the rest of the book is worth the read. One meant to mark a sentence or phrase here or there, but suffice it to say, if one is a reader, one will know just when one has come upon one of the gems in this tasty moresel.

Remembering what to do today. My lists are long. Very long, and I'm going to try to do one of those days where I go off the list and just keep doing things as I come across them. Something important will be to once and for all put things away in my room, since I never completed the put-away after selling the big dresser. Here goes!

CHELSEA ON THE ROCKS

Chelsea on the Rocks - Not worth it. Save your time and catch up on your DVRd stuff.

THE SUMMER BEFORE DARK

The Summer Before Dark by Doris Lessing - The cover looks promising, right? White letters on misty dark background, and a Nobel Prize Winner to boot. This book was written in 1973, and won a Nobel Prize for Literature. I have no idea why. Except there was a different sensibility about writing in those days...a more serious, bland way of writing with characters doing lots of ruminating. Books were often written in the third person, which somehow, coupled with the ruminations, rings false to me. In this book, a 45 year old English housewife gets a job when her family are all away for the summer. Then she has an affair with a 30 year old she meets in Turkey who gets sick in Spain after they sleep together once. Then I missed how she unloaded him, (he was really really sick, for weeks-whatever it was it was bad) but then she gets sick (really bad) and goes back to England where she rents (lets) a room in a house with a young woman who is rich and buys clothes and doesn't know who to marry or what she wants. The older woman gets better but sometimes goes out of the house looking old and haggle-y and sometimes goes out looking great. Actually that part I like a little bit because it's so true; there's that age where you can look fabulous for your age, or look 20 years older. Sometimes in the same day. As the English say in some of these ruminating books, "there's nothing for it, is there?" I also love but don't, that expression. It means nothing. Part of my bad attitude is that this was on the Book Club shelf at the library. When I first started writing book reviews, the Book Club shelf at our library had the most wonderful selection of new fiction. I'd read every one, and each was better than the last. It got to the point where I couldn't wait to see a new offering on that shelf. A few years ago, someone started adding non-fiction and ancient writings (such as this 1973 prize winner) to the book club shelves. One really has to be careful or one will bring home a dog like this. I'll end on that note. This is probably one of the worst reviews I've written! But, I suppose there's nothing for it.

THE LOVELY BONES

The Lovely Bones - I read the book years ago and loved the first part of it and liked the second part a lot. Although it's a story with a disturbing underlying theme, Susie Salmon draws you in. She's so alive and there, no matter where she really might be. The movie is great. I hadn't remembered many details, but couldn't stop watching just like I couldn't stop reading. The actress who plays Susie is amazing. Watch with an open mind and open heart, and this movie will talk to you too. And then....watch your children.

I eaten all the cookies I'm interested in, and Steve can finish them off. In a day or so they'll all be gone which is kind of embarrassing but goes to show you the power of sugar. Sh Sh Sh.....Sh Sh Sh......Sh Sh Sh Sh Sh Sh Sugartown.... Didn't you love the Nancy Sinatra video?

SUGARTOWN

While reading, listen to this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HzIrfA_t1Yk

Yesterday was my friend Jeanne's annual Cookie Exchange. She and another friend invite all the women they know to bring 4 dozen cookies to one of their homes on the first Friday morning in December. Everyone chats around, drinking coffee, juice and mimosas while snacking on mini quiches and spanakopita. It's a two hour event from 9:30 to 11:30 am. At 11:00 am, the hostesses award someone the prize for the prettiest cookie. Someone else gets a prize for last year's tastiest cookie based on hostess opinion and requests for recipes after the event. (I requested the recipe for a huge peanut butter truffley cookie dipped in chocolate, as well as shortbread that was cut into the tiniest bite-sized squares - obviously those are gone and not in the photo). Then you get a big tray and go around and take one of each cookie. They provide lots of saran wrap, you wrap up your cookies and go. Peter didn't notice there was a huge platter of sugar in the middle of the counter, but Steve always notices. However, there are a few rules for the poor guy. (Good thing he doesn't crave sugar). .....Steve, don't eat the the shaped ones, don't eat the ones that look like they don't have nuts. Don't eat anything that looks like a truffle, or with peanut butter, or really special. If they are a bar cookie without chocolate, with nuts, and look crunchy, show it to me and you can probably have it. And you can split with me any chocolate ones if it looks like they have nuts or fruit in them, but then you can probably have my half too, if I take a bite and don't love them. And you can have anything with ginger, jam or mocha. Except I forgot that the really chocolate-y looking shortbread was a mocha cookie and I ate it. My contribution this year was a simple cookie like brownie with white glaze and red and green holly decoration. I missed the first year of the cookie exchange - it was the morning of the memorial service for my friend Janice who was the most wonderful and avid cook and baker. May her memory be eternal. It is with me, because every year during the cookie exchange I remember her intelligence and wisdom and warmth. She was a great friend. But I digress.....The 2010 Cookie Exchange was a sugary success which has left me on a sugar high, so look out stuff to do....here I come!

DECORATING FOR THE HOLIDAYS

...or should I say holidaze. I can't believe the season is already here. It doesn't feel like it inside my messy little world of home and stuff to constantly do. Which is my own doing. I don't know what I'd do if I had no long list of things to do constantly ahead of me and in my path. I only wish I could always just do the things I want to do, and not the things I have to do. Which means get someone in here to clean! But I've been unable to give up the control of how it's done. It either gets done my way or not at all. Oh well. ANYWAY I did get started on a couple of pretty trees in the dining room. My theme this year is all silver and white with a bit of black here and there. Above is the Silver Tree, purchased at a garage sale last summer. No lights, just the white and silver ornaments. Here's the white tree with the silver ornaments....if I have time, I might change out the red ribbons for white. I love the way the tree is reflected in the mirror, and then if you look in the mirror behind the tree, you see the reflection of one of my mirror trees. Here's a card-worthy picture of a star in the white tree: Now back to the silver tree where I added this old fashioned looking doll I picked up at a craft fair years ago. And last but not least, one of my favorite ornaments, purchased when Peter was a baby. This is one I'd save when it comes down to it. The snowbaby. So soft, so peaceful, so comforting. I love the snowbaby. Oops...there is a problem loading pics into Blogger now, I'll have to add them later....

CODE TALKER

Code Talker by Joseph Bruchac - Code Talker is a fictional account of true events that happened to Navajo Indians in the first half of the twentieth century. This is the story of a Navajo boy who is sent to boarding school in order to unlearn his Navajo language and ways. Then, when he is a teenager, he and other Navajos are recruited by the United States Marine Corps to study and develop a code that our enemies in WWII won't be able to understand or decipher. The code, as you may have guessed, was composed of words from the Navajo language. The second half of the book is about the character's war experiences in the South Pacific. It's about storming small islands under Japanese fire and what it's like to live under those conditions. The author is a historian so the book is loaded with interesting information and details. The Navajo are a gentle, poetic, nature inspired people. Yet, they sent their sons into war. War is so unnecessary and so cruel and so wrong on so many levels, and it still occurs. And is sanctioned by our own government! It is beyond my comprehension that a government could send human beings into situations where they will be killed. For nothing. Unbelievable. I digress. Code Talker is a good Navajo Indian, World War II read.

THE KIDS ARE ALRIGHT

The Kids Are Alright - This great movie was only in the theaters for a minute, probably because it's such a great family values movie. Which is a quote from the writer/director. I say, without further ado, rent it and enjoy a fun little thought-provoking story. Great characters, great dialog, great story. This is about two adopted teenagers deciding to find their sperm donor father. They are actually half siblings, because each of their moms had a child with his sperm. Loved this movie.

OK, so I've got another day to spend at home, and the list is long my friends. I'm making my gifties, got some straightening, want to bead, need to figure out tomorrow since Friday is the famous Cookie Exchange and I can't believe it's already here. I'm not in serious competition in this thing, but some of the women really really like to win. I just want to make something delicious. Want to do some early wrapping since I enjoy it. Want to get a whole bunch of new seasonal stuff onto Craigslist. OK, here goes. I'll maybe post pictures of my two pretty little Christmas trees later on.