How to become a Tolkien fan, for the reluctant

Posted on May 5, 2013 by chowmeyow

1. Steadfastly avoid Middle Earth for 28 years. Middle Earth is not for you.

2. During the latter part of those years, start a book club with your friends and listen to them tell you how great Tolkien is and how you really need to read Lord of the Rings or you can’t really call yourself a good, upstanding human.

3. Do not read Lord of the Rings. Do not even read The Hobbit.

4. Continue to get nagged. Continue to not get a lot of their jokes. Continue to not really know what a Hobbit is.

5. Make a pact at the beginning of 2012 with the only member of your book club that has not read Harry Potter: you will read Lord of the Rings and he will read all seven Harry Potter books.

6. Buy a copy of The Hobbit and The Fellowship of the Ring.

7. Continue to not read The Hobbit or The Fellowship of the Ring.

8. Watch as your friend reads and enjoys all seven Harry Potter novels by April.

9. Start to feel sort of guilty.

10. Four months later, begin to see ads for The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey. The fact that it stars Martin Freeman (who you really like from the series Sherlock) does not escape you.

11. Start to think that The Hobbit looks like a pretty cozy sort of movie, and it’s almost Christmastime. You like cozy things. Especially at Christmas.

12. Buy another copy of The Hobbit because it is new and cuter than the first copy you bought.

13. Start reading The Hobbit. Enjoy every minute of it. These Hobbits eat two breakfasts, just like you. These Hobbits go on adventures. You love going on adventures. This book features a dragon. You like dragons.

14. Finish The Hobbit – you’ve loved it. Remain skeptical about the trilogy.

15. Go to see the movie of The Hobbit: An Unexpected Adventure on opening day with some of your friends during Brooklyn Christmas celebrations. Your suspicions were right, it’s an extremely cozy movie. Especially when you bring a 1 liter thermos of piping hot coffee to drink during the 10am IMAX showing at Lincoln Center.

16. Decide to download the audiobook of The Fellowship of the Ring, narrated by Rob Inglis, because Rob Inglis’s voice is cozier than a tub of butter. Listen to him read to you as you read along in your paper copy, of which you’ve also bought the new version.

17. Devour all 3 books and audiobooks during the 2012 Christmas holidays, which after all is the coziest time to read high fantasy.

18. Buy the boxed set of the movie trilogy on Bluray.

19. Develop an alarming crush on Viggo Mortensen.

20. Buy a button from Etsy that says “I brake for second breakfast.” Pin it to your bag. Acknowledge that you can never go back. Middle Earth is for you.

Polysyllabic Spree – February 2013

Posted on April 30, 2013 by chowmeyow

Books Purchased:

P.G. Wodehouse: A Life in Letters edited by Sophie Ratcliffe
Going all the Way by Dan Wakefield
Civilwarland in Bad Decline by George Saunders
Detroit: An American Autopsy by Charlie LeDuff
Londoners by Craig Taylor
Chronicles of Old London by Kevin Jackson
A Traveler’s Companion to London edited by Thomas Wright

Books Read:

Rules of Civility by Amor Towles
Pastoralia by George Saunders
Joy in the Morning by Betty Smith
On Looking: 13 Walks With Expert Eyes by Alexandra Horowitz (audiobook)
Let the Great World Spin by Colum McCann
The Psychopath Test by Jon Ronson (audiobook)
Detroit: An American Autopsy by Charlie LeDuff

In a month full of wonderful books, Rules of Civility was my favorite. Set in pre-WWII NYC, it has my ideal duo of successfully transporting you back in time and introducing you to perfectly developed characters that you will grow to think of as friends. A great novel to read at any time, but perfect for travel because you won’t want to put it down.

George Saunders publishes short stories in many of the literary magazines that arrive at my doorstep, so I’d read and enjoyed many of his stories over the years. But the amount of love I had for Tenth of December made me want to go back and read his story collections in full. I started with Pastoralia. My favorite story in the collection was “Winky,” perhaps because I was also listening to The Psychopath Test by Jon Ronson at the same time and there seemed to be a lot of symmetry between fictional characters in Saunders’s short stories and the real life subjects of Jon Ronson’s interviews. I am usually reading several books at once, and listening to an audiobook as well, and lately it seems the books I’m reading and listening to have a lot of unintentional harmony. (While I was reading Lean In by Sheryl Sandberg I was also listening to Drinking With Men by Rosie Schaap.)

A Tree Grows in Brooklyn is one of my favorite novels of all time, and yet I had never read anything else by Betty Smith. It felt time to remedy that with Joy in the Morning. It’s a lovely novel about a young couple starting out their lives together, appreciating the small, good things in their days and trying to scrape by with very little money. It’s no ATGIB, but it’s lovely in its own right.

Let the Great World Spin by Colum McCann had been sitting on my TBR shelf for several years. I’m happy to report that it lives up to the hype. I was reluctant to start it because all I knew about it was that it was centered around the man who walked between the world trade center on a high-wire, and I never seemed in the mood to read about that. It turns out that most of the book does not center around his story – that event ties all the other narratives together. But his story, though sort, was one of the best parts of the book. After reading this, I watched the documentary Man on Wire, which was fantastic.

I listened to the audiobook of On Looking: 13 Walks With Expert Eyes, mostly while walking myself. Alexandra Horowitz embarks on a quest to walk more mindfully, and notice things in the world around her that normally escape her attention. To do so, she takes walks with 13 different people, including her dog, an urban sociologist, Maira Kalman, a geologist, a physician, and a sound designer. This book is a treat, and yes, will most likely help you open your eyes wider and notice the world around your neighborhood that’s still foreign to you. If you like audiobooks, it’s a great one – especially while walking.

Detroit: An American Autopsy by Charlie LeDuff is a fascinating and honest look into the rise and fall of America’s auto capital. Detroit is the only American city to have reach 1 million residents only to fall back below that mark. (Current population is around 700,000.) It’s been left with poverty, corruption, racial tension, and depression. I think it’s important for Americans to understand what happened there. It’s a great book, and a heartbreaking reality.

Polysyllabic Spree – January 2013

Posted on March 9, 2013 by chowmeyow

Books Purchased:

The Return of the King by J.R.R. Tolkien
Amber, Furs and Cockleshells by Anne Mustoe
Tenth of December by George Saunders
Why I Wake Early by Mary Oliver
Lunch Poems by Frank O’Hara
The Fault in Our Stars by John Green
American Primitive by Mary Oliver
The Size of Thoughts by Nicholson Baker
Pastoralia by George Saunders
Inside USA by John Gunther

Books Read:

The Two Towers by J.R.R. Tolkien
The Journal of Best Practices by David Finch
Evidence by Mary Oliver
Tenth of December by George Saunders
Looking for Alaska by John Green
The Infinite Wait by Julia Wertz
The Return of the King by J.R.R. Tolkien
The Fault in Our Stars by John Green
Why I Wake Early by Mary Oliver
Heaven to Besty by Maud Hart Lovelace (re-read)
In a Sunburned Country by Bill Bryson (re-read)
Baghdad Sketches by Freya Stark
Betsy in Spite of Herself by Maud Hart Lovelace (re-read)

In January I read The Fault In Our Stars and saw Les Miserable and did not cry as a result of either. I joking commented to friends that my heart must be cold and hardened. But the poetry of Mary Oliver made it soar high and re-reading the first two Betsy books (for probably the 15th or so time in my life) made me so nostalgic and happy that I wanted to pick them up and start over again when I finished them. (For the record, I loved both The Fault In Our Stars and Les Miserable, there were just no tears.)

I finished reading The Lord of the Rings trilogy in January, and am now watching the movies. I will devote a full post to the entire experience of finally allowing myself to discover Tolkien once I finish the movies.

The Infinite Wait by Julia Wertz is a fantastic graphic novel/memoir that covers both finding your calling and dealing with illness. It’s also incredibly hilarious and there are fart jokes. Highly recommend. I just got another one of her graphic novels, Drinking at the Movies, in my most recent Strand shopping spree.

The Journal of Best Practices was given to me for Christmas by my friend Emma. Let’s just take a moment here and notice how quickly I turned this around from the TBR pile. Given to me in December. Read in January (early January, no less). This might be a record. Also, it’s a great memoir about a man with Asperger’s syndrome trying to make his marriage and family life work. Things that seem normal to many of us need to be constant reminders in his head, such as: “Don’t change the radio station when she’s singing along,” and “Apologies do not count when you shout them.” Asperger’s or no, it’s full of a lot of truths we all need to keep in the front of our minds if we want to have successful friendships, relationships, and families.

Read my review of Tenth of December here, and a passage from the Freya Stark book here.

The Art of Travel

Posted on January 20, 2013 by chowmeyow

“To awake quite alone in a strange town is one of the pleasantest sensations in the world. You are surrounded by adventure. You have no idea of what is in store for you, but you will, if you are wise and know the art of travel, let yourself go on the stream of the unknown and accept whatever comes in the spirit in which the gods may offer it.”

-From Baghdad Sketches by Freya Stark, published 1937

Tenth of December by George Saunders

Posted on January 13, 2013 by chowmeyow

I went to see George Saunders last week at Greenlight Bookstore in Ft. Green, Brooklyn. I knew it would be a popular event, but I didn’t anticipate the hundreds of people who showed up and packed the small independent bookstore beyond capacity and spilled out into the street. Joel Lovell wrote a fantastic article about George Saunders in the Times, and called Tenth of December “the best book you’ll read all year.” I’ve only read 4 books so far this year, but so far he’s right. The article created even more buzz about the book’s release and was largely responsible for the hundreds of people (including Susan Sarandon and Joel Lovell himself) who showed up Thursday night.

If you look closely at the photo below, you can some of the dozens of people who stood outside the bookstore looking in through the windows during the event. What you can’t see in the photo is the hundreds of people packed in the store behind me.

Saunders read a short, hilarious passage from “Escape from Spiderhead” and then answered a few questions from the crowd. The last question asked of him was “When was the last time you were surprised?” and he immediately replied, “Tonight.” It was lovely to see so much enthusiasm and support for such a deserving and incredible author.

So let’s talk about the book itself, shall we? I had read a few of the stories in it before, in The New Yorker and McSweeney’s, but that night, waiting for the event to start, I turned to page one and began the collection from the beginning. I finished the collection in two days. It’s incredible. The stories are compassionate, real, funny, heartbreaking, and surprising. One of the things I love most about his stories is the controlled way the plot unfolds – he dives into the story and you don’t know everything from the beginning, but you don’t feel lost – you trust him and the story and as you read the puzzle pieces fill in. It’s masterful. I read somewhere that he strives to be the kind of storyteller that makes the reader “lean in” – he definitely achieves that with every story in this collection.

I love every story, but my favorites are “Victory Lap,” “The Semplica Girl Diaries,” and “Tenth of December.”

Every article I read about George Saunders compares him to some other author – often Twain, Vonnegut, Pynchon, West – while at the same time saying he’s incomparable. I agree that he’s incomparable, but I do think that if you love Vonnegut, you’re likely to love Saunders as well.

2012 Books and Reading Recap

Posted on January 7, 2013 by chowmeyow

Well, I didn’t read as many books as I wanted to in 2012 (in fact, I think this is a five year low). Nevertheless, this is always one of my favorite posts and it was no less fun to tally everything up. I also enjoyed almost everything I read this year.

Total books read: 63

Fiction: 34
Non-fiction: 29

Male authors: 37
Female authors: 26

Living authors: 52
Dead authors: 11

Audiobooks: 18

Re-reads: 8 (Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix by JK Rowling, At Home by Bill Bryson, Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince by JK Rowling, A Walk in the Woods by Bill Bryson, Nine Stories by JD Salinger, Raise High the Roofbeam, Carpenters & Seymour an Introduction by JD Salinger, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows by JK Rowling, Bossypants by Tina Fey)

Total # of authors: 53
Authors I read multiple titles by this year: JK Rowling, Neil Gaiman, Bill Bryson, Stuart Dybek, Nicholson Baker, John Green, JD Salinger, JRR Tolkien, Nora Ephron.

Total # of new authors (authors I hadn’t read anything by before): 36

By year published:
1890s: 1
1920s: 1
1930s: 1
1940s: 1
1950s: 2
1970s: 1
1980s: 1
1990s: 4
2000s: 18
2010s: 33 (including 20 published in 2012)

My favorite books read this year, by genre.
These are, more or less, in order. (As always, I don’t include any book that was a re-read, on the assumption that most everything I re-read is already a favorite.) This year I’m including some thoughts on each one, to make up for the fact that I reviewed exactly none of them during my extended blog vacation.

Favorite Fiction:

This is How You Lose Her by Junot Diaz
Junot Diaz, you have never lost me. I will follow you to the end of the earth, as long as you keep writing fiction that feels like it has a beating heart.

The Hobbit by JRR Tolkien
My unexpected journey into Middle Earth was a fantastic adventure. More to come in a future post about my reluctant foray into Tolkien.

A Box of Matches by Nicholson Baker
Nicholson Baker is becoming one of my favorite authors. Actually, he pretty much did that before this one, with The Anthologist. But this slim novel is about a man who wants to know what life is about, so he wakes up early every morning, makes coffee in the the dark, and sits by a fire to think. It’s a beautiful, cozy book that makes you want to slow your life down a little and take note of your mind, routines, and surroundings.

The Art of Fielding by Chad Harbach
As I mentioned, I gave this book to many people this year. It has all the elements of a novel that will be nearly universally liked: great characters, good writing and story build, and it’s un-putdownable. I have yet to meet someone who didn’t like it. I’m not sure I’d trust them. (I also don’t trust people who don’t like pancakes.)

I Sailed With Magellan by Stuart Dybek
Absolutely beautiful short stories. You fall instantly in step with his characters in each story and regret parting with them.

Favorite Non-fiction:

Lost at Sea by Jon Ronson
This is a collection of long form essays by Jon Ronson, and every one of them is fascinating. He covers everything from ICP to robots to a road trip that recreates a James Bond novel. (Sidenote: I listened to the audiobook of this one and it’s fantastic. Jon Ronson reads it himself and has a great voice that’s well suited to tell you about his adventures.)

Without Reservations by Alice Steinbach
I discovered this memoir at the KPL Friends bookstore while I was in Michigan for Christmas. Alice Steinbach tells us about the year she took a sabbatical from her job, packed up, and went to Europe for 8 months. She’s an excellent armchair travel companion and she offers a lot of great thoughts on the experience of traveling alone, especially for women. She also introduced me to the writing of Freya Stark, for which I will be eternally grateful.

The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg
There’s a lot of popular psychology books coming out lately – it’s quite a trend. Some of them feel forced, but the ones that do it right are great. Charles Duhigg takes us through many fascinating examples of how habits can influence outcomes (from corporate culture to the NFL and everything in between). This book isn’t going to change your life (most likely) but it provides a great understanding into how habits work and what to do if you want to form them.

Wild by Cheryl Strayed
Ok, I read this *before* Oprah picked it. Cheryl Strayed is a badass, and I admire her guts. She tells her story well and writes with heart. She’s an extreme living example of one of my favorite quotes: “We create ourselves by our choices.” (Kierkegaard). Cheryl Strayed recreated herself by choosing to uproot herself from her life (which wasn’t going so great) and start an awesome and dangerous solo journey on the Pacific Crest Trail. If you haven’t already read this, I recommend it. I listened to the audiobook and enjoyed the narrator, Bernadette Dunne.

The Happiness Project by Gretchen Rubin
Like Wild, this book was crazy popular this year, and not without reason. It was the first book I finished in 2012 and helped me think about what I wanted from the year, and from life. This topic could have easily been corny or full of generic advice, but instead it’s filled with great research and meaningful examples from Gretchen’s own happiness experiments.

Quiet: The power of introverts in a world that can’t stop talking by Susan Cane
As an introvert, I’m thankful for this book. There are many inaccurate and negative stereotypes about introverts – many people hesitate to admit to being one. Susan Cane shatters any illusion that being an introvert is a bad thing, and helps to highlight all the many reasons why we need both introverts and extroverts in the workplace and society. It should be required reading for both introverts and extroverts. Susan Cane’s TED Talk is a great introduction to the book.

More Baths, Less Talking by Nick Hornby
If I had the opportunity to select any living author to become friends with, Nick Hornby would be high on the list because of all the books and music he’d be able to recommend to me. Just like the previous collections of his Believer columns, this one added dozens of books to my TBR lists. (And also to my TBR piles – because I’ve already bought a number of them.)

Best Poetry: I read a lot of poetry in 2012, but I never feel like reviewing a book of poetry or talking about it much, because poetry is so much more personal and private than novels. So I’ll just share my three favorite books of poetry, all by poets I hadn’t read before this year:

A Thousand Mornings by Mary Oliver
Diving into the Wreck by Adrienne Rich
The New Clean by Jon Sands

Book Events:
Only one, but it was a good one: Billy Collins at Strand. Favorite thing that came out of his mouth?: “Poetry is a bird, prose is a potato.”

Cheers to a new year and a new reading slate!

2012, you were good and right.

Posted on January 1, 2013 by chowmeyow

2012 was packed full. Almost all of it was good. Several things were life changing. I feel lucky and very fortunate.

I’m hoping 2013 will be just as fun and full of even more adventures. I hope it will present good challenges that will help me grow and learn. I hope I’ll get to spend a lot of time with all the people that I love. I hope there will be a lot of tacos.

2012 Stats:
13 trips/vacations/weekends away
11 states
2 countries
6 national parks
3 state parks
8 nights in a tent
8 broadway shows/plays
8 concerts
1 non-vital organ removed
1 startup company I work for acquired
1 new tattoo
1 new bike

Here are a few of the highlights, in photos:

Some of the Books I Gave and Where I Bought Them, 2012

Posted on December 17, 2012 by chowmeyow

I’m a Book Pusher. It’s not enough to buy myself more books than I can ever read in a lifetime… I’m not ok with letting a friend or family member advance into a new year of their life or go through the holiday season without a new book purchased by me and given to them with anticipation. Plus, most books are incredibly easy to wrap.

This year I’ve given a lot of books as gifts. Every single one of them was purchased at an independent bookstore. That’s important to me. I value being able to go into a bookstore and pick up their books and snoop through them until I find one or two or three that want to come home with me. I value the shelves in BookCourt that show what books people in my neighborhood have been buying the most. I value the handwritten index card recommendations. I value the curated tables at Greenlight Books that always hold a new surprise. I value walking out of a gray rainy day into a brightly lit bookstore with a cup of coffee. I value the tall shelves in Strand that make me feel like I can gain not just information but knowledge from the books they hold. I value all of these things, so I “vote” with my dollars to keep them there. They are not always cheaper than Amazon or buying online, but they are real, and they shelter my soul in a way that Amazon never will.

So here’s a small sample of the books I gave this year to friends and family that I love, from the bookstores I love. This isn’t so much a gift guide as a small tribute to sharing books and shopping locally.

The Art of Fielding by Chad Harbach. I got this book for several people this year, and I’ll probably get it for several more before I’m quite finished. I can’t imagine anyone not liking this novel. It’s probably happened, but I can’t imagine it. It’s about baseball and it’s also not about baseball at all. I did not want to read a baseball novel, but I read this novel and was so engrossed in it that I did not turn my phone back on the minute my plane landed, like I usually do. In fact, I read it all the way through baggage claim, the taxi line, and only turned put it down because it was too dark to read in the back of the cab. It’s good.

36 Hours: 125 Weekends in Europe edited by Barbara Ireland. I have the USA & Canada edition of this (now two book) series, and it makes the best armchair traveling and/or trip planning. The new Europe version that came out this year is just as wonderful, plus a little more exotic. If you could live inside a book, this would be a good one to choose.

Rotis: Roasts for Every Day of the Week by Stephane Reynaud, Frederic Lucano and Melissa McMahon. Roasts are delicious, so giving this book to a friend you like to cook with is très intelligent.

Otherwise Known as the Human Condition: Selected Essays and Reviews by Geoff Dyer. Do you know a human who likes art, photography, culture, music, books, and other excellent things? If so, that human will like you more if you introduce them to Geoff Dyer, should they not already be acquainted.

What books did you give as gifts this year?

Desert Road Trip 2012

Posted on October 6, 2012 by chowmeyow

Is it possible to convey in words and pictures the experience of 10 days hiking and camping in six of our country’s most amazing national parks?

How it felt to hike up the Virgin River, through the canyon walls of Zion, with the cold river water rushing across your feet?

What it was like at night in Bryce Canyon to stare up at the starry sky and see the Milky Way?

How perfect life feels when you’re drinking your morning coffee atop a giant rock in Arches, watching the sunrise?

How it’s possible to miss a color?

How right it is to end every day around a campfire eating smores?

How quickly your campsite feels like home, and how sad it is to pack up and leave a park?

How the experience of seeing the Grand Canyon for the first time surpasses every single expectation?

How hot Death Valley is? How the landscape and altitude changes so dramatically as you drive west across the park?

How Zion is so magical that it doesn’t feel real?

How in love you are with these trees?

How many ridiculous, amazing photos now exist?

How you have probably not laughed more in a 10 day span in your entire life and how you got to share everything with some of your best friends?

Is it possible to convey that? I’m not sure. I should probably go back very soon and experience it all again to get better at it.

(full set of photos are on Facebook and Flickr)

live fearlessly

Posted on September 21, 2012 by chowmeyow

we are here to laugh at the odds
and live our lives so well that death will tremble to take us
-charles bukowski