Paradise: ours for the making

Seems funny to be writing about This is Paradise by Kristiana Kahakauwila, a book of short stories about modern Hawaii, on the day that we're getting on a plane (or three, really) and heading East, to France.  

But since every story in this brilliant collection is about home and identity, it couldn't be more fitting.

This trip we're leaving on today to Arrens-Marsous where my father's family is from, when my parents have been since July 4th in the house where my father was born, has all the same echoes and whispers of What is home really? Who am I? that live at the heart of each of Kahakauwila's stories.

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A Constellation of Vital Phenomena: i am ruined

One of my favorite things -- besides free books -- is GREAT books.  

To be clear: an all-caps GREAT book first totally hooks me, makes me want to call in sick just so I can luxuriate all day in its pages, second ruins me for all other books for a while.  

A GREAT book obsesses me. I read everything I can about the author, I Like their Facebook page, follow their Twitter feed, watch interviews, go listen to them read if I can.  I talk about it to anyone who will listen.

So listen: A Constellation of Vital Phenomena is a GREAT book.

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Favorite New Year's ritual: 2012 books!

Like the giant dweeby bookworm I am, I am so excited that it's New Year's Day again and I can indulge in my favorite little January 1st ritual: reviewing and shelving everything I read in the prior year.  

I never shelve anything until the first of the new year. I just stack and stack, see how high they climb up the wall, until today when I sort them and begin the process of making room for them on my crowded shelves.

And also today I tally and rejoice.

Hurray, 2012, in which I read 44 books!

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reading and living and learning

I suppose I'm just one of those people who can only learn from direct experience. Especially when it comes to history, I need to live it in order to get it.

In short, I need to read it.

And not a dry history of whatever it is -- not a summary of this battle and that battle, this general, that president, this body count, that treaty.  Nope.

I need a story.  I need characters.  I need some fiction in my non.

So it is with The Headmaster's Wager by Vincent Lam, a book I recently received as a part of From Left to Write on-line bloggers bookclub.  I read this book in two days, couldn't put it down -- emerged from the story with a whole new perspective on a time that I should have known more about.

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The Black Count: the real deal

This, my friends, is how they should teach history: with books like The Black Count by Tom Reiss.  

I was utterly enthralled, captivated throughout my read, learning new things, making new connections between historical events, understanding, I felt, revolutionary France like never before.  

And Alexandre Dumas, novelist, whom I read as a child and again as an adult, how did I not know these things about you? How did I not know your father, the child of a slave, was the first black general in  French history, and, according to Wikipedia, "remains the highest ranking man of color of all time in a continental European army." Since the late eighteenth century?!

Thank you, Tom Reiss!

And thank you, From Left to Write, the online blogger bookclub, through whom I received a free Advance Reader Edition.  So fantastic

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