For as long as I can remember, I’ve enjoyed maps. We have several cool maps hanging up around our house as art and reference, we own a number of atlases, and I keep a basket full of maps from places we’ve been or have learned about. At my family’s insistence, I’ve recently learned how to use a GPS and have a wary respect for the fact that all the maps one could theoretically need are there for the digital asking.
But the nostalgic Luddite in me still feels like there’s nothing better than unfolding a map, tracing out a route, folding to the square you need, and then hitting the road, watching the scenery go by and knowing you’re steadily progressing up the highlighted line, and eventually, over the fold. From childhood, I’ve liked following along. My own kids experienced several epic road trips when we lived in Georgia and would travel back to New England each summer for a visit, stopping along the way in Atlanta, South Carolina, and New York to see family. They’re both good with maps.
My reading this month very much appealed to the map loving road tripper in me. When I wrapped up last month’s post, I was halfway through Jay Atkinson’s Paradise Road , a buddy travel tribute to Jack Kerouac’s travels. Atkinson writes about Kerouac’s work, the Beats’ travels, and his own trips to some of the same places Kerouac and friends visited. His narrative is both descriptive and reflective, taking the reader along for the ride with plenty of sensory details, and also synthesizing Atkinson’s travels with his relationships — with the friends and loved ones he travels with and leaves behind, and with Kerouac’s On the Road and other work.
In contrast to Atkinson, who traveled with friends most of the time, Peter Hessler writes about his many solo road trips in China in Country Driving. I’ve read Hessler’s other two books on China and I always recommend them to anyone looking for a contemporary account of the country. I can’t quite put my finger on exactly what I like best. He writes beautiful prose, natural and also erudite, streamlined and also painterly, showing readers the people and places he’s been in vivid detail that rolls off the page smoothly. And he is an enthusiastic guide, embracing China and translating his experiences for an American audience.
These are thoughtful, insightful books but Hessler doesn’t get wrapped up in showing his intellectual prowess — he is perceptive without being overly clever or egotistical. I also admire the way Hessler puts himself squarely in the story, generously sharing his views, his experiences, his friendships, and his difficulties, allowing his emotions to show but never to excessive dramatic effect. I open each new book he writes with a bit of trepidation, wondering whether it will be as good as the last.
Hessler has never disappointed. If you haven’t read his books, River Town is the chronicle of Hessler’s stint as a Peace Corps English teacher in Fuling, on the Yangtze River, and his introduction to China; Oracle Bones covers his experience as a journalist living in Beijing, traveling around the country, getting to know China through both its history and its people; and Country Driving is about Hessler’s own road trips, life in the village where he rents a place to live and write away from Beijing’s mad rush, and the impact of increasing numbers of cars and drivers on Chinese society. I highly recommend all three.
In a recent New Yorker piece, Hessler talks about moving back to the U.S. I look forward to whatever he writes next. And I appreciate his pointing me towards another outstanding book on contemporary Chinese culture: Factory Girls, by Leslie T. Chang; Hessler mentions Chang and her book at the end of his, because she is his wife.
Factory Girls describes the life of villagers who “go out” to work in factory towns from a very young age (many below 18, the legal working age, and barely out of middle school), far from their families. Chang got to know two girls in Dongguan, and through their stories and the story of Chang’s own family’s history, she paints a vivid portrait of the rapid changes taking place in Chinese culture today. Chang’s juxtaposition of 20th and 21st century cultural upheavals in China is very interesting. She draws on her experiences in modern China to get past history and politics and understand the social psychology that contributed to the conflict between the Nationalists and Communists and later, to the Cultural Revolution.
Chang also examines factory life from the point of view of young workers, an interesting perspective in light of recent headlines about strikes and suicides in giant Chinese factories. Her observations about the relentless pursuit of self-improvement, the power that new money affords younger generations, and the struggle to find happiness in the midst of mass changes in traditional family structures are astute and incisive.
I found some similarities in Chang’s and Hessler’s work beyond the subject matter. (Hessler looked at factory life in Oracle Bones). They are both very smart, clear, vivid writers and people who seem to be at once comfortable with themselves and their places in the world and also open, curious, loyal friends who genuinely care for their subjects. I look forward to more books from both of them.
Last month I wrote about a second book I really enjoyed, How Did You Get This Number, and vowed to read the first book by the same author, Sloane Crosley. That book, I Was Told There’d Be Cake, was enjoyable but I think Crosley’s second book is better. My favorite part of Cake was a description of summer camp in NH when Crosley was a child — hilarious. The rest of the book didn’t live up to that promising beginning, or to the second book, although a piece on losing her wallet repeatedly, and always getting it back, came close. That said, Crosley is a terrific writer, and it’s a good trend to be better with each subsequent book.
Another second book I read this month was The Map of True Places, by Brunonia Barry. I haven’t read her first, The Lace Reader, but I enjoyed this one. I read it because Barry was coming to Gibson’s (despite my vow to read fewer event books, I read more of those than anything else this month). Map is about a woman who seems to have her life together watching it all unravel, and deciding whether that’s for the best or not. As a reference librarian at heart, I enjoyed the masterful way Barry wove interesting subjects into the story — celestial navigation, 19th century American literature, psychology, and Wiccan herbology to name a few.
Barry’s characters are finely detailed and fully fleshed out, and this book is a tale well told. I’d recommend it for a day when you want to be carried away by a story — at the beach, on a plane, or in a hammock, for example, or by the fire if you’re reading this months from now. And if you’re wondering what a best-selling author is like in person, know this: Barry is one of the least pretentious, warmest, friendliest authors I’ve met. You know I’m segueing into a bookstore plug: if you’re a passionate reader like I am, don’t pass up the opportunity to meet authors, especially if you live near an independent bookstore.
Soapbox over. I read three other novels this month, all for events. Pete Nelson visited Gibson’s last week, to read from his Indiebound hit I Thought You Were Dead. The character who utters those lines, Stella, is a dog. If you don’t think dialogue between a man and his dog can be done well, go get this book. If you’re looking for a male Jane Austen for our times, read Pete Nelson. I mean that as a compliment. On his website he calls this novel a “tragi-comic romance.” He draws an accurate and amusing portrait of late 20th century American society as well, from yoga to DIY investing.
I Thought You Were Dead is also a novel of adulthood in contemporary America. The protagonist, Paul, is living in the Northeast but his parents and siblings are back in Minnesota. His father has just had a stroke and Paul needs to find a way to help from a distance (they end up instant messaging, and the keystrokes are part of his father’s therapy), but he’s a bit intimidated by his successful siblings. He’s a divorced writer who drinks too much, and who’s trying to have a relationship with a woman who is also dating a doctor. Paul is trying to understand all of these various kinds of love, and Stella is his foil and his philosopher. Sounds hokey, but I thought it was excellent.
The other two novels I read are by authors coming to Gibson’s second annual Summer Reading Kickoff on June 17th. I met Chris Wiley, aka Mortimus Clay, last fall at the NEIBA fall conference. He started his own press to publish The Purloined Boy; you can read about the end of this process at his blog. I admire what he’s done, and I enjoyed the book.
The Purloined Boy is a fantasy with many familiar characteristics — the protagonist, Trevor, realizes there’s more to his world than what’s immediately obvious, there are monstrous villains and a Merlin-like figure. Trevor has a mysterious, magical helper and a smart friend who want to help him. He is struggling to understand his role — is he to follow the longing he feels for “home,” a place he only vaguely remembers, or is he to stay where he is and help defeat the system that’s taken children from their homes in the first place?
Besides the moral dilemma, Trevor also faces the confusion of not knowing where he really belongs, and which world he’s lived in is real. While it’s true to the genre, The Purloined Boy is also an original story with interesting details. It would make an excellent book club pick – plenty to discuss.
I also read Nature Girl, the debut novel by Jane Kelley, who’ll be at the Summer Reading Kickoff as well. This novel for tweens is about a city girl, Megan, stuck in Vermont for the summer with well-meaning, but to her mind clueless, parents and an annoying older sister. She’d been planning to spend summer vacation with her best friend, whose mother has cancer, and in the course of the book she makes a spontaneous decision to hike to Massachusetts to see her friend.
I admire the way Kelley injects some reality into the far fetched parts of the story — Megan makes it on the Appalachian trail not only because of her own determination and spunk, but also because an adult hiker (the delightfully cranky Trail Blaze Betty) keeps an eye on her. Megan is a regular kid, trying to set a course in the unsettling world of early adolescence, wanting to enjoy the same kid fun she’s always had with her best friend but struggling to be more grown up, too. The story moves along at a good pace, and Megan learns from her experiences but the novel doesn’t end on a saccharine or preachy note. Nature Girl is a gentle but contemporary story with an exuberant, realistic heroine, for adventurous and couch-loving girls alike.
Just as I enjoy fiction without an obvious message or sticky sweet ending, I prefer my poetry spare and direct. My favorite poems are imaginative but relatively minimalist. Ted Kooser’s work fits that description, and this month I read Flying at Night, his collection covering twenty years of poems (1965-1985). From hiking (“Visiting Mountains”) to lying awake listening to a dripping sink (“The Leaky Faucet”) or the sounds of the “Furnace,” Kooser deals with everyday experience. I found Flying at Night to be a very cohesive collection, with no obvious misfits among the selected poems.
Kooser’s poems are brimming with plains imagery — abandoned farmhouses, prairies, humid Midwestern summers, a snow fence — and with ordinary Americans, including his newspaper carrier (“Myrtle”) and many of his own relatives. In this way his work reminds me of Wes McNair’s, but Kooser writes mostly shorter, sparser poems than McNair does. His tone is less optimistic — McNair’s work feels more hopeful and exuberant to me, whereas some of Kooser’s poems feel like dirges (“Shooting a Farmhouse,” “Tillage Marks”). And yet even these sad poems are beautiful.
I hang a poem up in the kitchen, next to the sink, every week. We used to rotate this duty, but when I sensed it becoming a chore, I relieved the children of the selection process so that poetry would remain a pleasure in their lives, and not another item on the “to do” list. I’m about to put Kooser’s “At the Center” up for this week: “In Kansas, on top/of an old piano,/a starfish, dry/as a fancy pastry/left sitting there/during a wedding,/spreads its brown arms/over the foam/of a white lace doily,/reaching for water/in five directions.” Many of his poems use the title this way – it’s almost its own line, rather than a word taken from the body of the poem.
Besides the Poem of the Week, the kids both continued to follow their interests in their reading this month. The Preteen enjoyed the latest books in two series she’s been reading for a few years: Nancy Springer’s Enola Holmes and Michael Buckley’s Sisters Grimm. Both are mysteries featuring strong girl protagonists. The Preteen reports that the new books in each series were both great.
She also read Rick Riordan‘s new book, The Red Pyramid. Riordan is the author of the wildly popular and very entertaining Percy Jackson series, which re-ignited the Preteen’s childhood interest in mythology. She reports that The Red Pyramid is full of Egyptian mythology, which is “kind of cool.” She also likes the characters in the new book — a brother and sister with an Egyptologist father. Riordan’s website notes that The Red Pyramid is the first in a series, so she’ll have more to look forward to. I like the way Riordan’s books spur kids to make connections with history and myths. All good books do this — add to our mental map of the world.
Meanwhile, she also read more manga (further episodes of +Anima and few of the Fruits Basket series). We’re enjoying our new Hooksett library card, which is a bargain at $25 a year for non-residents. Both kids have been using the library’s link to Mango languages, and the PreTeen really likes the YA room in the library, where she can browse manga titles and look for other books. On our last visit, she picked up a few non-Manga books: Catherine, Called Birdy, by Karen Cushman, a volume in the Royal Diaries which she hadn’t read before (Kristina, the Girl King), and Jeremy Fink and the Meaning of Life, by Wendy Mass, whose book A Mango Shaped Space she really enjoyed. I’m really happy to see her browsing for books at a library.
The Teenager is wrapped up in all things World Cup. His pleasure reading these days is almost entirely football related — he has an absolutely encyclopedic grasp of the 32 teams in the tournament and if I think I have a scrap of news about an injury or anything else, he has heard it already. Today, his first guest post appeared on NHPR’s Word of Mouth blog — he’s writing about the World Cup for them. He follows the BBC, the Guardian, Fox Soccer, Sky Sports, and US Soccer websites and probably more that I can’t keep up with, and we’ve all been enjoying daily World Cup coverage in the New York Times.
When I asked him what he’d read this month that I should mention in bookconscious, he immediately referred me to this week’s New York Times Magazine article by Michael Sokolove, on the Dutch club Ajax’s youth soccer system. Soccer development is a topic near and dear to the Teenager’s heart, and he has strong opinions on the state of the U.S. system. He’s also participated in two of the paths to the National Team — Olympic Development Program (ODP) and SuperY (he’s playing for Seacoast Wanderers now). He actually sent the Computer Scientist and I the NYT magazine article last week, ahead of its print publication.
The Teenager’s take: he admired the thoroughness of the article, and said it was clear Sokolove had really taken time to get to know his subject. He also thought it was spot on, in terms of critiquing the difference between the American soccer development system (or systems, really) and the way the rest of the world prepares youngsters for the pros. Unfortunately for his parents, this piece only confirmed what the Teenager already suspected — the path to his dream of playing soccer professionally is more than likely going to lead him across the pond.
As a favor, the Teenager and the Computer Scientist read World Cup 2010: The Indispensable Guide to Soccer and Geopolitics ahead of tonight’s Gibson’s event with father-son authors Steven and Harrison Stark. I’ve read bits and pieces of it, because that’s the kind of book it is — one to have by the remote while you’re watching the World Cup, so you can brush up on the teams and learn some amusing and strange facts, too. We’ve had this kind of book for past World Cups and one thing I admire about World Cup 2010 is that it’s full of information and commentary, rather than eye candy. I’m really looking forward to having the Starks at the store; everyone in our house is very excited for the World Cup to start on Friday.
The Computer Scientist began his Star Wars summer reading project. He read Star Wars: Cloak of Deception ( a prequel to The Phantom Menace) and Darth Bane: Path of Destruction (Darth Bane being a Sith Lord who lived 1,000 years or so before the time of the films). He enjoyed those, but hasn’t had time to keep his Goodreads page current.
He has a stack of books to read on his nightstand, but this is the last month of the fiscal year and therefore, his hair is on fire at work. He got several books for his birthday: The Pacific, by Hugh Ambrose, a couple of Fate of the Jedi books, and Jason Turbow’s The Baseball Codes. So he’s set for reading as soon as he finds time!
My to-read pile includes David Mitchell‘s forthcoming novel, The Thousand Autumns of Jacob De Zoet, which I’ve been reading for a week now. I’m not sure what I’ll read after that, but we do have some road trips coming up (to Burlington and Ottawa, for soccer games) so I’ll pack books. I might take Shirley Jackson‘s Raising Demons to Vermont, since I like to match my reading material to the place I’m traveling when possible. Novice to Master floated to the top of the pile recently and is calling out to me. My preferred hammock reading is fiction, and I’ve got several forthcoming novels to choose from. Until next month, happy reading!
bookconscious 