The Best Kind of Reading

We spent today doing the very best kind of reading!

Another Challenge Completed

I've read 4 books for Dolce Bellezza's Japanese Literature Challenge 2, and since I'm getting ready to dive into some new challenges, I thought I would post a wrap-up of this very enjoyable one. This is my second time reading Japanese literature with Bellezza, and I enjoyed it again very much! Her challenges are elegantly done, and I always look forward to them. Thanks, Bellezza for hosting another fascinating challenge!

Books read:

1. After the Quake, Haruki Murakami
2. Twenty-Four Eyes, by Sakae Tsuboi
3. Tales of Moonlight and Rain, by Akinari Ueda
4. Knit Kimono, by Vicki Square

I liked all four books, but the sentimental Twenty-Four Eyes was my favorite.

Thanksgiving Wishes...

A very happy Thanksgiving to all my family and friends, near and far! (Even if you don't celebrate Thanksgiving!) I am thankful for each and every one of you!

Across the Continent(s)

One of my favorite games when I was growing up was called "Across the Continent." It was all about taking train routes across the United States, and being the first to get from coast to coast. My brothers and I spent lots of hours playing it. As a matter of fact, I still have the old game board, although those little trains and the cards are long gone. (I found this photo on the internet, and was thrilled to see all the pieces again!)

Even though it's been a busy week, with report cards and parent conferences, I have been listening to the audiobook, The Old Patagonian Express, by Paul Theroux. I wonder if my enjoyment of Mr. Theroux's books on his train travels throughout the world is partly due to my love of this old game? This book is about his trip from Boston to Patagonia by lots of different trains! He tells story after story, and his observations are acute, sometimes acerbic, but always insightful and interesting. I have at my side during this armchair travel, a map of Latin America and am following closely along as he proceeds southward.

The Bridge of San Luis Rey

Thornton Wilder won the Pulitzer Prize in 1928 for his book, The Bridge of San Luis Rey. The language in this short book, more a novella, is beautiful and the story compelling. I remember reading it years and years ago (I think I was 17),
but I had forgotten the details of the story.

"On Friday noon, July the twentieth, 1714, the finest bridge in all Peru broke and precipitated five travelers into the gulf below." The tragedy was witnessed by Brother Juniper, who immediately began to search for answers to the question everyone asked: "Why these five people?" His attempt to find patterns in their lives that would ultimately lead to their deaths was seen as heretical by his own church, and ironically lead to his own death.

The book tells the stories behind each of the five, and Brother Juniper, right up to that moment on the bridge. It is a fascinating and very human tale.

This is definitely a book that should be read when one is 17, and then reread when one is a few months shy of 60 and so well understands the final message of this book -- that the most important thing in life is LOVE. That is the detail that I took to heart as a young woman, and that has been part of my guiding belief through all these years.

But soon we shall die and all memory of those five will have left the earth, and we ourselves shall be loved for a while and forgotten. But the love will have been enough; all those impulses of love return to the love that made them. Even memory is not necessary for love. There is a land of the living and a land of the dead and the bridge is love, the only survival, the only meaning."

An Undeniable Spirit...

Photo by Donna

The book blogging world is a warm and welcoming one. I started my own blog almost two years ago (two years in January), and have met some wonderful friends that share my passion for reading, writing, and all things bookish.

One of the friends that entered my world shortly after I started blogging is Donna, The Between-Place. I think we actually met through Carl V's Once Upon a Time challenge. Donna is a grad student and a poet, and as I began to read her posts on a daily basis, I discovered that she has an incredible spirit -- she's adventurous, independent, insightful, full of fun, and a gifted poet. Her blog is a journey worth taking. Go back through the archives and start at the beginning. Read all her poems, listen to the music she mentions, enjoy her photographs, and discover a person that lives life to the fullest.

Last month I discovered that Donna is very ill. The headaches she described a few months ago were the first sign that something was very wrong, and indeed, she is fighting cancer. She is now undergoing some very difficult treatments and fighting a noble battle. In an email she sent me last month, she said:

"So my life has changed 180 degrees, and I no longer have a clear idea of future paths. But I have an undeniable spirit of survival and an amazing network of caring and supportive friends and family. This too I shall get through."

I wrote her and asked if I could let some of her blogging friends know. I thought I would email everyone on her blogroll, but soon discovered that not everyone has an email address posted. So instead, I'm writing this post so that those of you that have followed Donna's blog for so long, know why she is quiet right now, and so that we can all lend our thoughts and prayers to her network of love and support.

We're thinking of you, Donna.

After the Quake

Many of my blogging friends are reading and enjoying the books of Haruki Murakami, so I was very interested in reading something by him for Dolce Bellezza's Japanese Literature Challenge 2. I chose his book, After the Quake, a collection of six short stories, each one connected indirectly with the 1995 Kobe Earthquake in Japan.
Another reason I chose this book was because I live in "earthquake country" and have personally experienced an earthquake and some of the emotional after-effects that inevitably follow such an event. In 2001, the Nisqually quake shook Western Washington. It did not have the destructive power of the Kobe quake, but there was significant damage to structures in the area and to everyone's sense of well-being. Even though I'd felt earthquakes before, on that day I felt the earth's crust ripple beneath my feet and I will never be the same. The earth simply doesn't feel as solid to me as it did before that experience.

"Strange and mysterious things, though, aren't they -- earthquakes?" the man says. "We take it for granted that the earth beneath our feet is solid and stationary. But suddenly one day . . . the earth, the boulders, that are supposed to be so solid, all of a sudden turn as mushy as liquid."

Murakami, in these six short stories, writes about the emotional upheavals and after-effects that follow a major disaster. Lives are changed in little and in big ways, and he writes about individuals that are searching for themselves and for meaning in a world changed by disaster. And I liked this comment from an unofficial, but very interesting, Murakami web site:

But the most compelling character of all is the earthquake itself--slipping into and out of view almost imperceptibly, but nonetheless reaching deep into the lives of these forlorn citizens of the apocalypse. The terrible damage visible all around is, in fact, less extreme than the inconsolable howl of a nation indelibly scarred--an experience in which Murakami discovers many truths about compassion, courage, and the nature of human suffering.

After the Quake was well-written and powerful. I will definitely read more of Murakami's books.

Blogging Odds and Ends...

It's report card time again, so I've been "under water" for the last few weeks. Coming up for air this morning, I'm trying to take care of some of the postponed business of this blog.

First of all, Tamara, of Thyme for Tea, has very kindly awarded me a "Kreativ Blogger" award, and said very nice things about my blog. Thanks so much, Tamara! It's always nice to meet new blogging friends, and it was lovely to receive your award and feel so appreciated.

Also, Nymeth is coordinating her Book Bloggers Christmas Swap again this year. I enjoyed it last year and decided that I'll do it again this year. It's a nice way of meeting new blogging friends and celebrating the holidays! If you would like to join us, read Nymeth's post about it, but the deadline for signing up is November 18th, so hurry! Thanks, Nymeth!


And finally, while at the library this week, I picked up the audiobook version of Paul Theroux's The Old Patagonian Express, which I thought sounded just perfect for my 'desperately seeking sunshine personal reading challenge.' It is! So this weekend I'll be both knitting (I've started something new for the Grandboy) and "traveling south" with Paul Theroux...a very nice reward for finally finishing filling out those report cards!

May Sunshine Light Your Day...

A single sunbeam is enough to drive away many shadows.

-- St. Francis of Assisi

When November arrives in the Pacific Northwest, it brings deep darkness and rain. Most of us living here actually like the rain and understand Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's advice: "The best thing one can do when it's raining is to let it rain." But that doesn't mean we don't long for sunshine on those long, dark, wintery days. One of my favorite things to do in winter, on a dark and dreary day, is to read a book that takes place in sunnier climates. I love to immerse myself in the written sunlight, and then look up to be startled by the dark contrast outside my window.

As I was looking through the books on my bookshelves this weekend, I was amazed at how many fit that sunshine description. I decided to put a list together of books I can read on very gray days...my own little journey south in search of sunshine.

My Sunshine choices:

• Death Comes for the Archbishop, by Willa Cather
• Mexico, A Traveler's Literary Companion, edited by C.M. Mayo
• Malinche, by Laura Esquivel
• The Bridge of San Luis Rey, by Thornton Wilder
• The General in His Labyrinth, by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
• Green Mansions, by W. H. Hudson
• Martin Fierro, by José Hernández
• The Alchemist, by Paul Coehlo
• The House of the Spirits, by Isabel Allende

People don't notice whether it's winter or summer when they're happy.

-- Anton Chekhov

(Click on the beautiful painting above to learn more about the artist, LaShun Beal.)

The Warp and Woof of My Life

Chris, at Stuff As Dreams Are Made On, tagged me for a meme this week. It's a fun one -- write" 7 Random Bookish Things About Me." Reading is the warp and woof of my life, so I've enjoyed these last few days thinking about all the things I could include from my lifetime of reading. Thanks, Chris!

• My favorite book is Jane Eyre. I read it first in seventh grade, after my older brother finished it. That first reading certainly had a profound effect on me, and sparked my life-long interest in reading the classics. I remember with crystal clarity the visual images Charlotte Bronte's words created in my mind. That red room...

• My mother and I have always shared a love of reading. This book blog was started as another way to share books with her since we live 900 miles apart.

• Memories of summer reading as a child: outdoors with a good book, lying on the grass, watching contrails in the sky, eating carrots, and devouring book after book.

• One of the intense pleasures of my life was reading books to my children as they were growing up.

• I love teaching children (of all ages) how to read. It has been my experience with the most reluctant of readers, that if you can capture them with good stories, they WANT to read so that they can read those stories by themselves, and then they work incredibly hard to become readers. Ignite the passion first...

• I hate to get stuck somewhere without a book, so I always try to carry one with me.

• Just like Chris, I associate certain books with stages of my life. Thinking of a particular book will "take me back" to where I was and what I was doing at the time I read it. It's a wonderful thread woven throughout my life!

I'm not sure who has already been tagged for this meme, so If you haven't been yet, please consider yourself tagged!

Seeing Red

Many of you have enjoyed a brilliant Autumn, with its entire range colors. The Northwest has also been beautiful this fall, but there hasn't been a lot of red. So when I took my students to their music time this morning, and saw the tree in the school courtyard, I just had to grab my camera. The photos don't do it justice, but you get the idea of the beautiful, brilliant red that took our breath away.