Why I love my public library...

Our local public library brings in a nationally recognized author with something interesting to say, some relevance with current issues, and who is on the speaking circuit.  This year, it was Nicole Mones, who I had never heard of, but since her fiction is about modern China, I decided it was worth reading, in anticipation of attending her free and open to the public talk.

Also, I attended a party sometime ago where I spoke at length with the director of the library about the author series which I love. But, I said, you really need to bring in a woman next time. So far, all the speakers had been men. So this was another reason I needed to attend.  To support the library who did just what I asked them to do.

Ms Mones has three published works of fiction so far and I chose to read this book, her third, The Last Chinese Chef. The book itself was not a favorite by any means. Fiction feels very contrived to me lately, and this book felt a little stilted in its writing and its story. I liked it. It was interesting. But I did not love it. Mones' research and attention to the history of China, in this case, Chinese food and restaurant culture, is evident, and for that reason, I stuck with the book. I did look forward to hearing her talk. Her other two books are about the porcelain industry and about archeology.

The talk was lovely. Nicole Mones is a very gifted story teller and speaker and has dedicated her writing life to telling little known stories about China and especially life during the cultural revolution. The bulk of her talk was about her new book, out in March, about Shanghai in the 1930's which became a sort of haven for African American performers who enjoyed money, success and fair treatment when they were invited from Harlem to start a big band type movement. She also talked very eloquently about a little known movement in Jewish history, that of the immigration of 25,000 Jews from Austria and Poland to Shanghai during the reign of Hitler. Her stories came with pictures and small movies of the era and overall it was a really smashing evening. I am now a huge fan. Bought one of her other books and will make sure to get a copy of this book when it comes out.

As a final coda to the evening, my husband and I were invited to a soiree afterward with the writer and I asked her about China's one child policy and if she had any interest in writing something about that cultural phenomena.  She responded that she would need an American tie-in to make it work for her and she did not have a ready one. I wanted to ask her more about writing, but she was too in demand. I had to move along.  What a great evening. Support this writer--buy her books!

Some books I've been reading

September and October are flying by: kids, school, doctor appointments, writing circles, holidays on their way.  All good, but all taking away from my chances to read and write about it. I did bring home a box of books from the Red Cross Book Fair, I still get books from my early reader program, and in my ongoing life with writing, buy books to learn about the art and craft of writing and holding space.  So here, in brief, are a few of my favorite reads from the past month.

Wives often make it possible for men to be successful. I hate it when men step up to the podium to win huge awards for volunteerism, or community activism or heck get ticker tape parades for the first earth orbit, and no one mentions the spouse or partner--it was this woman who stayed home taking care of kids and household and everything that make his success possible. This is the story of just those women. There were first 7 original mercury wives, then came the 9 gemini wives, then 14 apollo wives, then the 19 apollo wives.

The bulk of the story focuses on the first 7-the ones who set the standard and traditions, but it delves also into the 9 who joined them and also into the first 14 apollo wives. The families had an exclusive contract with Life magazine so there is a great photographic record of these women and those times. It is very basic reporting but keep in mind it has to cover lots of time and lots of people. The story of how these women kept their spirits up and the home fires burning on the cusp of changing times is intriguing.

Women in jail seems to be my reading focus. This book was edited by a writing colleague in Burlington, Vermont. She has the women from her prison program submit hundreds of poems and prose pieces.  I took it into my own writing program at the Monroe County Corrections Center and asked women to read and write in response to the pieces in the book.

To learn more about that process...here is another blog post I wrote on the experience.





Because I enjoyed the Netflix series and because I volunteer at the local jail, with the women's block, I checked out this very popular memoir written back in 2010: Orange is the New Black: My Year in a Women's Prison.  I just want to say, WOW!  Much different than the series, very readable, and very interesting. I highly recommend you read this book. If you aren't on the restorative justice bandwagon and the anti-mandatory minimum drug laws lobby group after reading this, you are nuts.  Our country has gone too far crazy with the punitive drug laws. They aren't serving anyone except the prison industrial complex. I would love to send a note to Piper Kerman to tell her about our little writing program. Her address wasn't apparent from her website (I am guessing she is wildly popular about now.) but if you have it, please send it to me, I would love to write her and let her know how much I loved this.

She Left me the Gun: My Mother's Life Before Me by Emma Brockes

She Left me the Gun is the author's exploration of her mother's life before her. It is part memoir, part investigative journalism, part travel narrative, and part family history. It takes place in England and South Africa and it promised to be a very provocative story of a life left behind.

At the start Ms. Brockes explains that she had a very happy life, and that she had only the smallest of hints that her mother had a horrible childhood.  When her mother dies of cancer, the author makes contact with her mother's sisters and brothers and attempts to discover a life that she really knew nothing about. It reminded me a bit of After Visiting Friends by Michael Hainey which I read last spring and LOVED.

The thesis was that the mother, by not telling the author her sad story, was able to protect her from the sadness; she closed off this part of her life so that the daughter (the author) could have a happy life and a happy childhood. The author went to South Africa to meet her long lost family and try to capture the story that her mother never told.

The premise was intriguing and kept me interested to the end of the book. I was immediately captivated by the premise and couldn't wait to see how it unfolded. Unfortunately, it felt a little loose. She meandered and unfolded the story in a very disconnected manner. She hinted at the story through family members' silence and raised eyebrows, but no one talked about "what happened" and no one really described the father-the horrible man at the center of this story. A little about where he came  from, nothing about where he went, just court records and quiet  conversations and a few snapshots.  It was unsatisfying: a great premise, the hint of a good tale and it all simply meandered away.

I did like reading about South Africa. Would love to go there again someday. The author created a lovely travel narrative with a bit about crime and history of South Africa and some tourist spots. Fascinating Country.

Spoiler alert: this is a book about childhood sexual abuse.

the Joker by Andrew Hudgins

Did you ever meet a guy for whom nothing is sacred? He (and it is always a he) tells racist, sexist, homophobic jokes among many others and because of his attitude or demeanor or what, I don't know, can get away with it?  That is this guy.

Andrew Hudgins Professor of Poetry at Ohio State (THE Ohio State University)  has always been enamored of humor and since he remembers hearing his first joke (what is black and white and read all over?)  he has been seeking out and dissecting jokes to understand what makes them funny.

This is an oddly fascinating memoir in which he tells the story of his life through the prism of joke telling.  He carefully remembers and records all the jokes he's enjoyed and told and even hated over the years.  Jokes correspond with an excellent anaylsis of racism and sexism and homophobia. They also play pretty heavily into his childhood and teen years.

Although he does bring his memoir into the present day, about 85% of this memoir is dedicated to his life at age 18 or before. I began to wonder if I would ever know what became of him, if he married (yes twice) or had children (no) or got a job.

Anyway, very interesting twist on the memoir.  Fabulous discussion about humor--all of it, the good, the bad, and the racist. Thanks to Susan for the recommend. Available at the Public Library.

The Midwife by Jennifer Worth

Lets just call this the Summer of the nurse.  I seem to keep picking up books about the caring profession.  This time the memoirs of Jennifer Worth who was a nurse-midwife in the east end of London in the 1950's.  A remarkable account of the life and times of a particularly hard time in a hard neighborhood. I picked it up mostly because I am captivated by the series Call the Midwife that has been airing on PBS for two seasons and which is based on this series (there are two more) of memoirs.

Anyway, if you are a fan of the series the memoir adds enough extra material that you will find it interesting; it really explains things a lot more fully, and if you have not watched the series, it is really a fascinating read in the memoir genre. Very different from everything else out there.  It was written in 2002. Ms Worth died a few years ago.

Easily picked up, in paperback, at Barnes and Nobles or you can borrow my copy.

Where am I Wearing?

Great travel book, current events update, and thoughtful consideration of the worldwide apparel industry written in language that holds interest for all readers. Writer, traveler Kelsey Timmerman takes his five favorite pieces of clothing: t-shirt from Honduras, underwear from Bangladesh, sandals from China, Jeans from Cambodia, and shorts from USA and does a global tour to understand the lives of the people who make his clothing. Are they really made in sweatshops? How do these people live? IS there some oversight of the conditions in which the people who make our clothes find themselves?

The author manages to enter almost all the factories to see where his clothes are made, and he meets people who make the clothes and talks with them, through interpreters, about their lives in the factories. He meets children in the factories and talks about the effects of boycotts on children specifically. He meets families separated by thousands of miles who work to send money home to their loved ones.

This book is assigned reading for the incoming freshman class at Northern Kentucky University, and I found out about it through my in-laws who read it in anticipation of the author's visit to NKU this fall to speak to that class. The assignment of the books seems timely given the recent fires at the clothing shops in Bangladesh (book was written in 2009).

I really love this book and this writer and look forward to reading his next: Where am I eating?  Available at the library.

On the Noodle Road

Whew!  I've been reading this travel narrative/cookbook for about a month. It was a slow read, and I was often tempted to put it down, but yet there was something endearing about the author/traveler and her insights about food, travel, love and women.

Chinese American Jen Lin Liu founded a Chinese cooking school in Beijing and met an American journalist also living in Beijing who she marries. Upon traveling with him in Rome she conceives of an idea to trace the path of the noodle from China to Rome. She strives to understand where the noodle first originated and decides that following regional cuisine while traveling the silk road would be a fascinating travel memoir.

She travels through China, Central Asia, Iran, Turkey, and finally Italy to answer this one question: did China invent the noodle that Italians have now perfected?  The question, while somewhat intriguing seems (and I think proves to be) a mighty thin thread to hand a 300 plus page travel narrative.

Ms Lin-Liu does dig deep into some more interesting questions primarily about the place of women in most of the countries through which she travels. She also begins to ask difficult questions about her own marriage. She meets lots of friendly cooks and locals who introduce her to the cuisines of the region.

After struggling to get through this memoir, I started to really like this author and stuck with it to hear how her marriage ended up and read her conclusions about the noodle. I won't give it away--I hate to spoil it for others.  I will say that while Central Asia seemed pretty bland food wise, she wrote food porn about the cuisines of Turkey and Italy that made me vow to travel to eat in both of those places.

In the end, some interesting observations in patches, a few recipes, an earnest author who you root for, and some good food writing probably salvaged this memoir.  A must read if you plan to travel in this region.