It’s official: The New York Times has decreed my Christmas list again.

Except: gasp! I actually already read one and own another one of the Top 10 Books of 2008! That never happens!

In fact, I thought I was still slogging my way through last year’s list. Out of ten selections, in the entire year since it came out, I have read Then We Came to the End by Joshua Ferris and Imperial Life in the Emerald City by Rajiv Chandrasekaran. I do own Tree of Smoke by Denis Johnson and The Savage Detectives by Roberto Bolaño, who made this year’s list as well. Either I got them both for Christmas or I bought them with a gift card to Barnes & Noble, I can’t remember.

I only recently finished the 2007 selection for the Booker, The Gathering by Anne Enright.

But I’m digressing into my tendency to be a prize whore. Admit it though: how fun is it to be able to act like a member of the literati sand say “oh yes, I disagree with the Booker selection, I thought Salman Rushdie was much more deserving,” even though my friends would laugh for several reasons, including that I’ve never read Rushdie. Oh yeah, and also because I’m not usually that obvious with what a literary snob I am.

Anyway, back to the Times’ selections and the most important part, the book I’ve read: Unaccustomed Earth by Jhumpa Lahiri. The book is a return to her Pulitzer Prize-winning roots, with a short story collection. I don’t exactly agree with the Times’ claim “there is much cultural news in these precisely observed studies of modern-day Bengali-Americans,” since her stories often depicting much of the typical Indian-American experience.

But I loved this collection of stories. It’s easy to get lost in Lahiri’s sentences, since her descriptions are so vivid. Nothing major happens in any of her stories, but they are real people’s emotions, and you don’t have to be Indian to understand what she is saying.

Here is an example from the first and title story, Unaccustomed Earth: “Her first impulse was to shred it, but she stopped herself, staring at the Bengali letters her mother had once tried and failed to teach Ruma when she was a girl. They were sentences her mother would have absorbed in an instant, sentences that proved, with more force than the funeral, more force than all the days since then, that her mother no longer existed. Where had her mother gone, when life persisted, when Ruma still needed her to explain so many things?”

I’m not sure I’m doing anything to convince anyone to read it, but I just love that paragraph. What better way is there to describe a woman who just misses her mom?

Anyway, if this is an indication of the rest of the books on the Times’ Best Books list, I’m excited to read the rest of them. I own A Mercy by Toni Morrison, so I’m going to make an effort to read it after the semester’s over.

Hmm, and my own list of the Top 10 books I read this year? I guess Unaccustomed Earth, What Was Lost by Catherine O’Flynn, Dreams from My Father by Barack Obama, Run by Ann Patchett, What is the What by Dave Eggers, Imperial Life in the Emerald City and Not Quite What I was Planning. That’s only seven. Honorable mention goes to All Aunt Hagar’s Children by Edward P. Jones, but the entire collection of short stories were too uneven. But I’ve been a little slow this year, because of school and the election messed me up because all I read were magazines.

Has anyone read any of the other books? Have any suggestions which one I should pick up after A Mercy?

I’ve stayed away from discussing books on this blog (well except this one earlier time), mainly because I’ve been too busy to read them. But over the holiday weekend, I read two: Boomsday by Christopher Buckley and Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi.

They could not be more wildly different, as Boomsday is a satire along the lines of Jonathan Swift’s “A Modest Proposal” while Persepolis is a graphic memoir about Satrapi’s life in Iran following the 1979 revolution. Guess which one was more fun?

Persepolis is an interesting digression to the graphic novel genre, a genre I’ve never really gotten into because I can be a literary snob. Or some people say. Anyway, I enjoyed Persepolis and it certainly did not take a long time to read, but I’m probably going to be sticking to non graphic novels from now on.

I give Satrapi credit for portraying both herself and her experiences in a unlikeable manner, but the book lacked some insight. In the first installment, “Persepolis: A Story of a Childhood,” the simple drawing and text made sense, in conjunction with her childhood. However, in “Persepolis 2: The Story of a Return,” Satrapi returns to Iran after graduating high school, attends university and later marries. None of these seem appropriate with the author’s tone.

At the same time, one of the graphic memoir’s biggest holes, in my opinion, is Satrapi’s lack of culpability in all her endeavors. While I certainly understand she was the victim countless times—especially many of her misadventures in Vienna, where she spent her adolescence—I had trouble sympathizing with an adult woman who cannot recognize contrary teenage behavior, whether in Iran or Austria.

My other criticism lay with Satrapi’s lack of perspective on her own experiences of the revolution. The Iranian Revolution and the Iran-Iraq War certainly created a “Lost Generation,” in my opinion, of youths. The most appropriate comparison I have is of the South African generation that won the battle against apartheid, but afterward had no training or therapy or experiences past prison sentences. Satrapi was rebellious even before the Revolution—she secretly wrote love letters for her maid when she was a little girl—but she offers no perspective on how those events created an entire generation whose focus is simply on appeasing the government officials, rather than leading a fulfilling life.

In the end, Satrapi is able to achieve her goal of a graphic memoir: she is able to paint the picture of modern Iran in ways many other writers have not been able to, and without divulging into cheap weepiness.

On a much lighter note, Christopher Buckley takes on the Baby Boomer generation in “Boomsday,” much to my enjoyment. As with most satire, the plot runs completely out of control, and to the point where I had no idea by the end any of the characters’ motivations. But, actually, that’s kind of the point: in Washington, things get done for no reason at all, while others are completely ignored.

Cassandra Devine, a twenty-nine-year-old public relations executive and blogger, calls for anyone over the age of 65 to take part in “transitioning,” or voluntary suicide to help ease the burden they could place on the next generation. Calling the Baby Boomers the “Un-greatest Generation,” Cass hopes the call to action will instead help bring much-needed reform to Social Security.

She gets the help of Sen. Randolph K. Jepperson and her boss, Terry Tucker, a public relations guru, and the bill starts to take off. Jepperson begins the regular Washington wheeling and dealing because he wants to run for president … and that’s about all I can say here without ruining any more of the book. Suffice to say, if you’re looking for a fun, light read with a touch of political satire, this is probably the book for you. Plus I read almost the whole thing on the subway and still could easily follow the plot, which is a major plus right now given the amount of schoolwork I know we all have.

I’ll leave you with the book’s epigraph, one of my new favorite quotes:

“Blessed are the young, for they share inherit the national debt.” – Herbert Hoover.

Oh and stay tuned, the New York Times is coming out with the Best Books of 2008 issue and I’ll be weighing in soon.

In all the election hubbub, I haven’t had much time since your passing to reflect on how much your work means to me.

I hadn’t heard of you until a broadcaster friend from San Francisco came to stay with me, a tattered copy of Working in her suitcase. When I told her that I wanted to do a radio series about jobs in our town, she excitedly thrust the book into my hands.

You’d done it! And it was wonderful. The vivacity of the voices in that book hooked me forever. I discovered that our local library had a copy of The Good War and a few other of your books, and I tore through those, too.

For the first time, EVEN AFTER EARNING A DEGREE IN HISTORY, I understood that history is alive, alive, alive.

I’ve never been good at keeping track of dates and specific policies; like card games and jokes, I learn them and then they slip my mind. But I do remember stories and emotions. Those individual voices and characters in your books illuminated it all for me…my black and white sketch of our country’s contemporary history was suddenly, gloriously,  colored in.

It’s funny…the day before you died, I was at The Strand browsing through the Americana section. There were four or five hardcover copies of Hard Times on the floor, and I sat there for a while thumbing through the stories and thinking of our current economic crisis. Is someone documenting this the way you would have?

I have seen oral history bloom in popularity this past decade. Programs like Storycorps and This American Life rely on the strength of individual voices to give context to recent history. And when done well, without preciousness or preamble, these voices are most powerful tool we have as journalists. Thank you for teaching me this.

I’m going to go back and buy one of those copies of Hard Times. I wonder if the news of your death has inspired people to go buy your books this week. I hope that there are enough copies for all of us.

With great respect,
Valerie Lapinski

But when I walked by the Sony store on 5th Avenue Saturday night and realized there was man IN the store window, lounging in a recliner reading an e-book, I stopped with my friends and took a picture.   (”Tourist,” a true New Yorker would scoff.)  And when I walked by again hours later heading home, I stopped and stared at the man in the window, asleep with his bare feet dangling out from his blanket.

Then I came home with a need to settle my curiosity.  Who was this man and why was he sleeping in a Midtown store window?

His name is Dave Farrow and he is a two-time world record holder.  He once memorized the order of 59 decks of playing cards shuffled together, and he’s a speed reader.  So Sony hired him to live in the display window for the month of October to promote the Reader Revolution, which is basically a pledge the company made to donate 100 e-books to a school for every page Dave turns.

It sounds like a win-win, right?  Sony sells a ton of digital book readers and gets great publicity while school kids get free digital books.

But what about Dave?  Is it really humane to make him live in a store front window, for all the world to gawk at, just to save Americans’ dwindling interest in books?

Yeah.  It probably is, especially in an overstimulated city like New York.  Nevertheless, I’m convinced that there are better ways to inspire young readers in New York City.   My main issue with the Sony experiment is that the scope of its influence is limited.  Sure, it’s great to donate educational things to school children, but most of the kids in NYC won’t see the man living in the store who overcame dyslexia and ADD and loves to read books.  I want to see a pro-literacy scheme that won’t just give kids books, but will also share with them a little piece of the enthusiasm we have for reading.

Any ideas?

Now that the gates have officially closed at Yankee Stadium, fans may be craving a little nostalgia from the good old days of baseball.  Julia Ruth Stevens, who threw the last “first” pitch at Yankee Stadium Sunday night in the house her father built, might just have the remedy.

Although she admits to being a Red Sox fan, Ruth Stevens published a book in 2008 filled with photographs and memories of the Babe, especially his time spent in pinstripes. The book titled Babe Ruth:  Remembering the Bambino in Stories, Photos & Memorabilia is a pricey $35.00, but captures why this one man from Baltimore became a worldwide legend.  Sure she mentions all of the records he set, broke and how he is still considered the greatest player ever to swing a bat, but she also writes about his humble beginnings and how he was simply a great dad.  

One chapter in the book, Ruth Stevens describes her father’s special breakfast we would fix, just for her.  She describes how the Babe would wake her up early in the morning before he would go hunting or fishing. He would butter bread and fry an egg in a whole, cut in the middle of the bread, and top it off with a slice bologna.           

Ruth Stevens really balances the legend of her father and showing how he was just an ordinary man who had a great passion.  Considering the state of baseball today, with the million dollar salaries, steroid use or human growth hormone, expensive ticket prices, and “misremembering” clubhouse conversations, it is refreshing to look back on why baseball is an American pastime. 

Although I am not a Yankee’s fan, I can remember the first time I went to a game at the Stadium.  My older brother and I had tickets in the bleachers.  We sat in the furthest row from home plate, and in the furthest section of right field.  We had the worst possible seats in Ruth’s house.  There was not one person behind us and we both just laughed about it and looked around and saw the perfect view of all the devoted fans in the entire stadium.  My brother gave me nudge and told me to shut up, so he could have a “moment” at Yankee Stadium.