9 posts tagged “nonfiction”
Finished: 09-February 2009
Story Synopsis:
Through delightful drawings, photographs, and musings, twenty-three-year-old Lucy Knisley documents a six-week trip she and her mother took to Paris when each was facing a milestone birthday. With a quirky flat in the fifth arrondissement as their home base, they set out to explore all the city has to offer, watching fireworks over the Eiffel Tower on New Year's Eve, visiting Oscar Wilde's grave, loafing at cafés, and, of course, drinking delicious French milk. What results is not only a sweet and savory journey through the City of Light but a moving, personal look at a mother-daughter relationship.
Commentary:
I first discovered Lucy Knisley at her table at the MoCCA fest in 2008. Her art looked extremely cute, and being the wannabe foodie that I am, I was amused that she was selling a "cheese" shirt. So, I looked her up and found out that this book was coming out later in the year, which made me excited since it was about two of my favorite things: food and Paris.
Lucy's experience in Paris is something that I would want to try someday. And she does a great job of detailing exactly what makes Paris enjoyable -- the museums, the art, and of course, all the wonderful food. I truly enjoy reading these travelogue comics (such as Carnet de Voyage and A Year in Japan), so finally owning French Milk is a great addition to my library.
I will admit though, that sometimes, Lucy's feelings towards things make her sound like an ungrateful whiny brat. I mean, she has a wonderful experience of being able to spend SIX WEEKS in Paris, and she wastes precious time whining. Well, I guess we're all allowed our share of existential angst...
Obtained: NYPL
Finished: 30-January 2009
Story Synopsis:
In this raucous collection of true-life stories, actress and comedian Chelsea Handler recounts her time spent in the social trenches with that wild, strange, irresistible, and often gratifying beast: the one-night stand.
Enter Chelsea Handler. Gorgeous, sharp, and anything but shy, Chelsea loves men and lots of them. My Horizontal Life chronicles her romp through the different bedrooms of a variety of suitors, a no-holds-barred account of what can happen between a man and a sometimes very intoxicated, outgoing woman during one night of passion. From her short fling with a Vegas stripper to her even shorter dalliance with a well-endowed little person, from her uncomfortable tryst with a cruise ship performer to her misguided rebound with a man who likes to play leather dress-up, Chelsea recalls the highs and lows of her one-night stands with hilarious honesty. Encouraged by her motley collection of friends (aka: her partners in crime) but challenged by her family members (who at times find themselves a surprise part of the encounter), Chelsea hits bottom and bounces back, unafraid to share the gritty details. My Horizontal Life is one guilty pleasure you won’t be ashamed to talk about in the morning.
Commentary:
Okay, dirty secret time: I actually watch Chelsea Handler's show every once in a while. She's mostly funny, and she's pretty enough and I like her schtick with her midget assistant.
...Which, sadly, also sums up my feelings about her book.
I really thought that this book was going to be the rauchiest, most embarrassing and cringeworthy thing that I'll be reading all year. Sure, there were some sections that had me snorting to myself on the train, but overall, I felt that this book was just okay. Not bad, not good, just okay.
And maybe this is a dilemma with humor books as a genre -- while many writers are able to convey humor through their words, there are people who can convey it better either in spoken form or acted out. I think Chelsea Handler belongs in the latter. Her stories are probably hilarious when she tells them in her stand-up since you're experiencing the whole person communicating the story. But if I'm just experiencing everything through her words, I felt like there was something missing.
Obtained: NYPL
Finished: 28-July 2008
Quickie review: Found this while browsing through the shelves at the NYPL. Seemed appropriate, considering that the Olympics are just around the corner, and also because I know that my cultural knowledge of China is actually pretty insubstantial. This book does a good job of surveying various aspects of Chinese history and (pop) culture, as well as inserting various tidbits that correct people's presumptions of this nation. Some of the entries do become repetitive after a while, but overall, it's a good starting point for someone with even a passing interest in China.
Obtained: Forbidden Planet
Finished: 25-July 2008
Quickie review: I've been reading a lot more American comics this year than I ever have in my life. This is the series that first took hold and hasn't let go. This volume, which focuses on Flycatcher (aka the Frog Prince), is probably the first story arc in Fables that's more or less closed. I enjoyed this arc immensely, even though I could've done without the short chapter about the wolf cubs... I also wasn't crazy about the art change for that particular portion.
Obtained: NYPL
Finished: 31-July 2008
Quickie review: A collection of short stories about Russians living in Brooklyn and their life situations involving food. Mikhail (the boyfriend) first found out about this, and you know that since I've now moved into Brooklyn, I had to read this book out of anthropological (or sociological) curiosity. The author was able to catch nuances of the Russian personality that I've seen for myself -- but not necessarily making excuses for them, which is cool.
Finished: 23-June 2008
Story Synopsis:
Famously referred to as one of the "Axis of Evil" countries, North Korea remains one of the most secretive and mysterious nations in the world today. In early 2001 cartoonist Guy Delisle became one of the few Westerners to be allowed access to the fortresslike country. While living in the nation's capital for two months on a work visa for a French film animation company, Delisle observed what he was allowed to see of the culture and lives of the few North Koreans he encountered; his findings form the basis of this remarkable graphic novel. Pyongyang is an informative, personal, and accessible look at a dangerous and enigmatic country.
Commentary:
Lately, I've been having mixed feelings about travelogues. Sure, it's nice to read about somebody else's adventures in a foreign land and to vicariously experience their travels with them, but there have been a few times when I would read a travelogue and become disgusted with the narrator's ignorance and negative biases instead.
I'm still working through what I feel about Delisle's observations of his time in North Korea.
In this era of political correctness and popular democracy, North Korea definitely sticks out like a sore thumb. Even China, once the shining paragon of communism and its ideals, has realized that it needs to loosen up a bit to the West if it wants to play. North Korea, at least from Delisle's comic, doesn't want to leave its sandbox. It's perfectly happy with the status quo, even though the status quo has been irrelevant for many, many years.
Delisle describes the monotony and sheer ridiculousness of the culture (whatever left is there to call culture) -- vast monuments built to honor the Eternal President Kim Il-Sung, and additional buildings built for the son Kim Jong-il. Speaking from a Westernized viewpoint, North Korea is a slowly stagnating wasteland, where the people are so afraid of thinking counter to what the government tells them that they're willing to put up with poverty and starvation merely to avoid the "re-education" camps.
I'm hesitant to recommend this comic as mere entertainment fodder. While I don't feel that the work is super politically charged, I think that this work should just be a start to other books that you may want to read about the state of affairs in North Korea. A comic should not be one's mere source of perspective for something as important as that.
(What? There was a contest?)
Men May Come and Men May Go ... But I've Still Got My Little Pink Raincoat by Gigi Anders
Obtained: Library
Finished: 26-November 2007
Story Synopsis:
From one very fabulous and elusive little pink raincoat (to woo one commitment-phobe) to a pair of very persuasive peach panties (a gift from a dazzling doc), Gigi Anders relates her obsessions with clothing and men through a series of beautifully crafted vignettes. Side-splitting and sharply observed, these true stories chronicle ten classically glamorous and hard-to-find items (from clothing to accessories to makeup), the corresponding hard-to-pin-down boyfriends—and the quest to nail them both.
Anders delivers a tasty, uplifting, and universal meditation on the things we crave and the lengths we'll go to get them. Women everywhere will recognize themselves in this book.
Commentary:A quick and flighty read about the author's obsessive relationship with things and men.
Gigi Anders presents herself as one of those women who think that having (or wearing, or owning) certain items will make her more attractive and more lovable to men. The pink raincoat mentioned in the title, for instance, was an almost painful revelation on the lengths certain people (okay, women) will go to in order to get that one coveted thing. It's a GAP raincoat, for one thing, and last I checked, boys won't love you for wearing cute pink outerwear.
I don't think I found any of the essays "side-splitting," as the advertising text suggests. It was almost like watching multiple reruns of a car wreck. Woman obsesses on certain item, buys certain item thinking that it'll bring her love and happiness from a man, watches in dismay as man doesn't offer love and happiness because of item, rinse and repeat.
If anything, this book only proves that 90% of primping and beautifying that women think would bring them attention from a man is unnecessary. If a guy really wants to be with you, you could be wearing a sack for all he cares.
To this, I attribute in my possession of some of the best books I own-- the Moyen de Parvenir, for example, printed at Chinon in the early seventeenth century, with the note on its title page: "New edition, corrected of divers faults that weren't there, and augmented by many others entirely new."
Forget the stereotypes. Today's Japanese women are shattering them -- breaking the bonds of tradition and dramatically transforming their culture. Shopping-crazed schoolgirls in Hello Kitty costumes and the Harajuku girls Gwen Stefani helped make so popular have grabbed the media's attention. But as critically acclaimed author Veronica Chambers has discovered through years of returning to Japan and interviewing Japanese women, the more interesting story is that of the legions of everyday women -- from the office suites to radio and TV studios to the worlds of art and fashion and on to the halls of government -- who have kicked off a revolution in their country.
Japanese men hardly know what has hit them. In a single generation, women in Japan have rewritten the rules in both the bedroom and the boardroom. Not a day goes by in Japan that a powerful woman doesn't make the front page of the newspapers. In the face of still-fierce sexism, a new breed of women is breaking through the "rice paper ceiling" of Japan's salary-man dominated corporate culture. The women are traveling the world -- while the men stay at home -- and returning with a cosmopolitan sophistication that is injecting an edgy, stylish internationalism into Japanese life. So many women are happily delaying marriage into their thirties -- labeled "losing dogs" and yet loving their liberated lives -- that the country's birth rate is in crisis. With her keen eye for all facets of Japanese life, Veronica Chambers travels through the exciting world of Japan's new modern women to introduce these "kickboxing geishas" and the stories of their lives.
Commentary:Veronica Chambers received a grant from the Japan Society to live in Japan for three months and to immerse herself in Japanese culture. Wow, color me envious or what?
Chambers interviews a good cross-section of women -- from a DJ from Hokkaido, to Canon's top female executive. What I did like about her overall presentation was the way that she didn't really judge these women, one way or another. A few of the women she interviewed wanted to be housewives and moms -- and you know what, Chambers is okay with that. She approaches this subject as a journalist, telling the facts and letting the reader decide whether or not they personally agree. I like how the author doesn't push down the old-school feminist tracts down my throat. Feminism, as cliche as it sounds, is about choice. If the new Japanese woman decides that she wants to follow the tradition of the women before her, then so be it. It's just good to know that if she decides not to follow that path, then there are other alternatives open to her.
Random tidbit: I actually bought this book at the Astor Place B&N, just before I left for Germany a couple of weeks ago. I still find it weird when I read things that reference places that I actually know & frequent. Maria Headley is funny and smart, and her writing reflects it. I made the stupid mistake of reading the author bio, and for this book, that kinda spoiled the ending... Nonetheless, her journey of accepting love (be it from the wrong men at all the wrong times) is pretty inspiring for this NY'er. This city does have a lot to offer, and it's always best to keep an open mind lest you miss your chance for happiness.
This is also it for my chick-lit selections for a while. Chick-lit somehow makes me really frustrated (for numerous reasons) so I need a short break.
Rachel DeWoskin's interest and knowledge of Chinese culture prior to arrive in Beijing really helped her define her experience, which would not have been the case if she were just a regular girl from the American midwest who thinks that going to China is going to be a mythical & magical ride. But, even with all these, there were aspects of Beijing life that weren't all sunshine and rainbows. As an Asian-American myself, I could imagine how much easier her China experience would have been compared to mine -- being a white American female kinda helps sometimes. Her salary is higher than her other colleagues merely because she's white, she gets additional attention because she's white, heck, even the role was offered to her (a person with no acting experience) because's white. Sure, this is unfair, but the author realizes this as well. This is the point of the book, in essence: even in the modernity that is racing across China (most especially Beijing), the Chinese people are still struggling in redefining the roles of women, foreigners and Chinese alike.
DeWoskin starts off well, but in the end, I think she was starting to get preachy. I would have liked to read more about her own personal experiences in China, but instead, we got vignettes about Anna, Kate, the boyfriend, and the painter. I didn't mind the female anecdotes, but the chapters on the males were a bit heavy-handed. Otherwise, still an okay read. I personally get a kick in reading non-Asian accounts of life & culture in Asia.
