Double Duty

It took me several days but I finished "The Badlands" by Paul French. This is actually a special companion book to his bestseller "Midnight in Peking" (which my brain always changes to "Murder in Peking", I think it has a nicer ring). You can't have one book without the other (and The Badlands won't make much sense if you haven't read Midnight in Peking) so I get to talk about both books!

I picked up "Midnight in Peking" a few weeks ago when I was preparing to fly back home from visiting my parents. I was in Barnes and Noble panicking because I needed books (in case the plane crashed and I survived by floating on my seat cushion I would need something to read). I also barely had any room left in my backpack so I was looking for paperbacks that would easily fit in the minuscule amount of space. So as I wandered around the two floors packed with books my requirements were pretty loose. "Midnight in Peking" was sitting on a nice display table, the cover looked interesting (I know I know I shouldn't pick a book by the cover-but everyone does it they just won't admit it) and it fit in my backpack. I was sold! 

"Midnight in Peking" tells the story of Pamela Werner, a British subject, and her unsolved murder in 1937 Peking. I had an early morning flight so I planned on sleeping the whole time, but once I started reading I couldn't put the book down. When we landed in Chicago my seatmate had to remind me to get off the plane since I was lost in Peking. I spent my four hour layover at O'Hare curled up in a hard gate side seat reading the book and avoiding the wonders of the Chicago airport (like Nuts On Clark, the Field Museum store and the fancy chocolate shop). I barely had the attention span to gobble down a sandwich from Brioche Doree (by the way it comes highly recommended if you're in the mood for a delicious yet overpriced sandwich).

I got home and I had many pressing obligations, like a work meeting and unpacking my luggage but I blew them off to keep reading (well not the work meeting, just the unpacking part). To make it short and sweet "Midnight in Peking" was one of the best books I've read in my life. It's history told in a novel format and it's compelling. French takes the reader back to Peking in 1937 and thoroughly explores the politics that made Peking such a interesting and deadly city. He manages to weave the politics into the narrative of the story so it doesn't overwhelm the reader with too much complex political discourse. Pamela Werner was a young woman coming into adulthood and exploring her adopted city. She was there with her father, a staunch academic with a mysterious past and Pamela herself was forming her own secrets. She turns up murdered and French walks us though the slipshod investigation and then presents his own theory (which is the result of his discovery of papers belonging to Pamela's father).

Through the investigation into Pamela's murder French explores the Badlands of Peking, a tangled web of cheap restaurants, brothels and drug dens that butted up to the Legation Quarter, home to the foreigners of Peking. Many of the colorful characters that inhabited the Badlands pop up throughout the mystery surrounding Pamela's death. French decided to expand on these characters by releasing the companion book "The Badlands"

"The Badlands" covers characters that were touched on briefly in "Midnight in Peking" like Shura (the hermaphrodite pimp), Peggy and Marie (White Russian prostitutes) and a variety of others who were affected by the Badlands and their eventual downfall under Japanese occupation. French is able to go into more detail that he was able to in "Midnight in Peking" yet it is not nearly enough detail. The book is only 83 short pages and it could have been much much longer. Many of the stories just seem to end without a clear conclusion and the stories really seem like short autobiographies. It's really just an overview of their lives and French doesn't explore them in depth. These characters have such fascinating stories that more detail would have only served to make the book more interesting.

I'll readily admit that I'll read even the most dry historical tome quite happily, but I'm reluctant to pick up a historical novelization because I hate the inaccuracy of facts that tends to occur when people try to make history more interesting and make it come alive (which is why I've never made it past the opening credits of Titanic). "Midnight in Peking" and "The Badlands" read like novels but stay true to the facts at least for the most part. French does throw in his own conjecture fairly often (which seems to happen in "The Badlands" more; probably because they are shady characters and their history gets lost to time). I like the fact that "The Badlands" includes a map, something that would have been more helpful when I was reading "Midnight in Peking" (it's difficult to put places on a map of a town you've never seen while reading about them). However, "Midnight in Peking" gets the highest praise because my mom read it (who openly admits she hates anything to do with history-I mailed it to her and guilted her into reading it) and she absolutely adored it.

Overall "Midnight in Peking" gets a 5/5
"The Badlands" gets a 4/5 solely because the length is so short and the stories aren't explored in depth. It seems to be designed to leave you wanting more (probably to sell more copies of "Midnight in Peking") and that irked me. It was like sitting down to eat dinner and only getting dessert; while dessert is awesome you still need some protein to offset the sugar. (FYI I'm sitting on the couch watching Psych and eating cake for dinner; all the sugar is leading me to rant about ridiculous things).

The book itself has a website with a very cool interactive map and a cast of characters among other nifty things. http://us.midnightinpeking.com/

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Up Next: "The Empty Glass" by J.I. Baker

I Love Everybody (If everybody is my dog)

It was a very busy weekend at our house. Saturday the dear fiance and I adopted a puppy from our local shelter!

Meet Massey!

She's a ten month old (according to the vet) Lab puppy. She was given to the shelter by her first family because they just couldn't deal with her puppy behaviors (chewing, housebreaking issues etc.). We didn't take this decision lightly, I've been begging the fiance for several years for a dog. When we finally bought our house in January I was totally ready to head straight to the shelter and pick out a dog, he stepped in and said we had to wait until summer so I would be home all the time to work with the dog. In mid April my parents had to make the tough decision to put down our 12 year old chocolate lab and my jonesing for a dog increased exponentially. We went on Saturday and looked at several dogs and ultimately decided on her because she seemed calm and happy. She is, at least partially, she is totally calm if both of us are sitting in the room with her. Her sole goal in life is to be with her people and she isn't particularly happy if we aren't all together. There is nothing more she loves than cuddling with me or sleeping at my feet (of course the second I move she's all over the place). She also throws up in the car and likes to run wild in the yard and chase birds and bugs. She also hasn't quite yet mastered the "come" command (as evidenced by her taking off into our wheat field today and refusing to return), but she's great at sitting down!

This is a lot of backstory for a blog about books, but I honestly cannot stop gushing about my sweet little girl. It's fun to see her personality develop so quickly and to see how different she is from other dogs. I have known. However, she requires a lot of attention and work and for that exact reason I've read a grand total of two pages this weekend. Getting a new puppy is a lot like having a baby (not that I've every actually had a baby but the concept seems similar) and I wasn't too interested in my book (even though it is an awesome book). Turns out even for an avid reader when you have something as cute as a new puppy book reading tends to go by the wayside.

However, I did finish Laurie Notaro's book and without further ado here is my short and brief review.

I've admitted to a fondness for Laurie Notaro so it's not a surprise that I adored "I Love Everybody and Other Atrocious Lies". Laurie is like a meaner (and slightly stupider...in a good way) version of myself. Her writing verbalizes my internal monologue. I especially connected with her struggles to get her book published and the struggle when yet another rejection letter arrived in the mail.

She says "Each said I sucked. Each said I was 'not right for their needs.' Each wished me 'good luck
 in my pursuit to get my book published. And they meant it, the same way my mom meant it when I told her I had finally found a boy that liked me back" (61). When I read those sentences and the continuing rant about how all she would have to do to get her book published is become Anne Heche or Oprah Winfrey and I connected. The best thing a book can do for me (or any reader) is to make a connection with the reader. It's a tough thing to do, especially in the memoir genre when the author is sharing specific stories about their own life. I've read a lot of memoirs that I just can't connect to, it's almost becoming an overdone genre with entirely too many people telling stories that to be honest aren't that interesting (Living Oprah comes to mind). It's a tough balance to strike, you have to be honest yet it is difficult to make the mundane funny and exciting. Notaro strikes that balance with ease, she's able to take the smallest most mundane events that every person has experienced (shopping at Costco, going to the movies and helping the elderly with their electronics) and turn them into something epic.

When I read her book I feel like I can look at my most mundane activities and find the humor in them all. It's a gift really to look at shopping at Costco (sub in Sam's Club for me, we're too much of a cow town to get the fabulous Costco) and write several whole pages about it (To be fair I can write several pages about shopping at Target-but absolutely no one wants to actually read them) and make me laugh out loud. I'm sure if I could get my dear fiance to read it he would identify with Laurie's long suffering husband Victor (since I'm sure the reports he gets about my day sometimes sound like her books in the level of ridiculous).

I'm giving this one 5/5

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Why I'm Destined to Own Entirely Too Many Books

It became clear to me this week why it is just in my destiny to own way way to many books. This has nothing to do with my early reading ability, my family genetics (trust me if your mom is a librarian you are practically required to salivate over books) or anything of that nature. This story highlights the absolutely ridiculous situations I find myself in with frightening regularity (things that seem to happen to no one else).

Earlier in the year I ordered a textbook for one of my online classes, no big deal right? However, there was a screw up with shipping and I ended up with two copies of the textbook. I promptly stuck both of them on a shelf (because even if I "need" the book for class the likelihood of me actually opening it is slim to none) figuring I would deal with the book later.

This week I decided to deal with extra book and I logged onto Amazon to sell the book back. When I discovered I would be getting a 49.00$ credit on my account I was thrilled! Dreams of new books on my Kindle danced in my head as I happily packed the book up and sent it off with the handy prepaid shipping label (and wrapped neatly in a Brahm's bag). Yesterday I get an e-mail that my trade in had been denied and they were sending the book back to me.

Turns out this book has two different ISBNs (two different hardcover editions, one that is significantly cheaper than the other). Turns out I was sold the wrong book (sold the cheaper book at the higher price). At this point I was furious and spouted off a massive ranting email to Amazon (one of my many fabulous hobbies). Because Amazon is an awesome company who always tries to do the right thing they issued a credit of 49.00 to my account and then forwarded the information on to the investigators.

Great! Right? Well, kind of. See the other textbook is still jetting its way back to me and I still have two copies of the same book. When I have the courage to actually get rid of a book it just boomerangs back to me and takes up precious space on my shelf and now I'm too scarred (or lazy) to try again.

In other book news (apparently I have a lot of that) I finished Laurie Notaro's book and I expect to have my review up Monday-ish. (It's shaping up to be a busy weekend). I've selected my next book "The Badlands: More Stories from Midnight in Peking". This is a special e-book companion to the fabulous book "Midnight in Peking" by Paul French. This book was the best book I've read so far this summer and I was thrilled to drop the 3.99 on the companion book (and to be fair this book has only been floating on my Kindle for a week or so, much less time than my other books).

The First Book

Part of the problem is that I'm a serial re-reader. If I find a book a like I will re-read it countless times, finding something new every time. Dave Barry, Jen Lancaster, Elaine Viets, Janet Evanovich, Sara Shepard and J.K. Rowling are all authors whose books I've read hundreds of times, often to the detriment of other books on my shelves. It delights me to wait a year or so and then reread my favorite books, it seems like every time I open the book I find something new and something that speaks to me in a different way. It helps that I'm in my early twenties and each year I change dramatically. Who you are at 23 is very different than who you are at 24 and the amazing thing is that books change with you. The people in your life may not (I think we all have those friends who we loved in high school, but by the end of college you want to stab them in ear), but books always will. Relationships are something that must constantly evolve in order to be successful (and according to my fiance I also hold the belief that your house should change every four months so you still like it) and my relationships with my favorite books is constantly changing. Take for example Dave Barry, I started reading him when I was in middle school and while he was funny I couldn't really relate to a lot of the things he talked about as I wasn't an adult with a house and family. Fast forward to last year when we were desperately shopping for a house (and failing miserably because apparently you can't have a brand new house on many acres of land for less than $500,000) I re-read his book "Homes and Other Black Holes" and I finally realized exactly what he was talking about. He was spot about absolutely everything and I couldn't stop laughing (and reading passages aloud like some sort of awkward parrot-Trust me it wasn't appreciated no matter how funny the book was). Just like dating I struggle with meeting new books, just like I would totally be with one person for my whole life (because that's socially acceptable and because change is scary-except when houses are involved) I would love to read one book for the rest of my life. However, I can't stop checking out the selection (it's totally natural) so I find myself with thousands of books. Because I'm a complete pansy I decided to give myself an easy book for the first book, don't want to overtax my brain on the first go round.

I'm starting with "I Love Everybody (and other atrocious lies)" by Laurie Notaro. I picked it mostly because the title makes me laugh every single time I even look at the book on the shelf and it comes highly recommended by an author I admire. It's also reasonably short at 226 pages and the last thing I want to read during summer vacation is a lengthy academic tome. I already have to read enough of those for graduate school, when I'm done with my homework I want fluffy and funny and Notaro fits the bill. Plus, I'm cheating in a way because I've read several of her other books and I know I like her (I know, I know...But Rome wasn't built in a day).

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My challenge...should I choose to accept it

Currently I own about a thousand books, maybe more or less, with that many it is difficult to get an accurate account. One whole room in my house is devoted to housing my three bookshelves, all double rowed. Books are hidden throughout my house, in the bedroom, in the living room and a couple are even stashed in the kitchen. I never leave the house without a book stashed somewhere on my person and when I travel I bring a stash of emergency books in case the places I'm going aren't civilized to have books (they usually do and I just get a sore back from lugging around an extra 10 books). Last year I joined the digital revolution and now I can tote around 350 books on my tablet, yet I still bring books along just in case.

Books are my world and they always have been. I was an early reader (tends to happen when your mom is a librarian) and by Kindergarten I had to get a special sticker on my library card for those of us who were privileged enough to read above our level. Since then I've devoured books, somewhere on the average of 7-8 a week. For most of my life these books came from the library, but then I graduated college. After graduation I moved to a small rural town with a minuscule library and I was making my own money. It was a recipe for disaster (especially with the advent of Amazon) and slowly but surely in the two years since college my collection has grown at an alarming rate. My dear fiance (who takes a year to finish one book) happily tolerates my addiction, mostly owing to the fact that it's cheaper than other things I could be addicted to (and I tolerate his Lego obsession so we're even). However, I think he reached his breaking point in January of this year when we moved from an apartment to our first home. By the time he was ready to put his desk together and unpack all of his prized computer equipment my books had taken over the house (his stuff is still in boxes in the garage by the way).

My prized collection (This doesn't count the giant basket of books in the living room, the basket in the bedroom, the 350 or so books on my tablet etc.)

When I look at my bookshelves I'm saddened by the fact that I've only read about half the books on them. I constantly start books and don't finish them because I buy some new book that catches my fancy. As an author myself (I claim that distinction even though my computer hard drive is littered with half finished manuscripts and the only full book I've ever actually written is still is that tenuous stage of query and rejection) I know how hard these people worked to write these books and I feel guilty that I've never given them their due. I look at the books and I wonder what enticed me to buy them. Hopefully one day it will be my book on the bookstore shelves and I want to understand why people choose to buy a book (and why they leave it on their shelves for years unread).

I'm giving myself a challenge; I have to read every single book currently contained in my house from start to finish. Hopefully, through this project I'll learn more about the "why" behind my book purchases and why certain books are the most awesome things in the world while others inspire you to toss them in a wood chipper.