Winter Readings (and more)
A different kind of Link Round Up
Anytime can be a good reading time. But I’d venture to say that winter up at 1700 ft elevation in the Pacific Northwest is a particularly good reading time.
In this post I am sharing what I have been reading and watching lately, not as recommendations, but what I managed to take away from the time spent on each of them.
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Books:
Charles Yu’s Interior Chinatown was the winner of the 2020 National Book Award for Fiction. In this book, Yu employs the screenplay form to tell a story within a story. The two stories blend into each other seamlessly and thus creating an illusion (or is it reality disguised as an illusion? ) of one story, a grim story of the elusive American Dream for the “Generic Asian Men and Women”. I found Yu’s use of screenplay writing clever. The story feels painfully true, albeit the telling of it is a bit too dark for me. I am also confused about Yu’s perspective on his own identity when he mixed in an incident that happened in Taiwan in 1947, when “Chinese vs. Taiwanese” was not about national identity but oppression by the ruling government, which predates communist China.
One particular statement struck a nerve and it stays with me, one that was presented as a piece of advice given to Willis, the “Generic Asian man”, by a black cop.
Working your way up the system doesn’t mean you beat the system. It strengthens it. It’s what the system depends on.
It ought to be a wake-up call for many of us.
Tom Lake, a 2023 novel by Anne Patchett. This one I listened on audible, read by the one and only Meryl Streep. Throughout the entire book, I had the images of Meryl Streep both as an innocent and trusting young Lara, and a loving and beloved middle-aged Lara in the two stories—yes, it is a story within a story too—who fell in love wholeheartedly with the men in her life, the acting on stage, the wholesome life on the cherry farm, and mostly, her three daughters. It had heartbreaks, letdowns, and disappointments, but Anne and Meryl made even these emotions beautiful. There were heart aches but my heart was filled with light, not darkness.
Friends, Lovers, and the Big Terrible Thing, Matthew Perry’s memoir. This is a book I started and restarted several times before finally finishing it. I was torn between admiring Perry’s talents and being taken back by the destruction - destruction to himself and the people who cared and loved him. Somehow in his voice (I listened to the audiobook read by Perry himself) the words of remorse were read with no emotion. I have one takeaway from the 8 or so hours (spent while on a stationed bike or treadmill which should make it somewhat productive) - You can’t help others if you can’t help yourself, and you don’t love anyone if you don’t love yourself.
But I remain a staunch Chandler Bing fan.
How Much of These Hills is Gold, a 2020 debut book by C Pam Zhang. This is a book that reads more like poetry than a novel, although the story—of two sisters of Chinese origin on a hopeless quest trying to outrun their bleak fate during America’s Gold Rush period— is hardly poetic. The writing is beautiful and forceful in a refreshing way, setting up a contrast between beautiful and ugly, life and death, harsh and gentle.
Shorter Reads:
A New Yorker Profile by Joan Acocella, on Mikhail Baryshnikov, THE ballerino who has been my hero (and crush) since I watched the movie The Turning Point when I was a pre-teen in China.
… he thought he found onstage what people seek in religion: “some approximation to exaltation, inner purification, self-discovery.”
And I think I found the same in writing, my new passion.
But what has made him an artist, and a popular artist, is the completeness of his performances: the level of concentration, the fullness of ambition, the sheer amount of detail, … all deployed in the service of a single, pressing act of imagination.
Isn’t this true for any excellence?
The surprise gifts from a “Frugal Opera Superfan” - I call that true love!
Reading this article makes me rethink about my Amazon Prime membership …
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Documentaries:
I now have Netflix as part of my new T-Mobile plan and as a result, some of my reading time went to watching time. I started my nighttime movie watch with two mini-series (4 episodes each) documentaries, recommended by my dear friends. Both made me look at my own life and contemplate what changes are good for the body and soul.
Working: What We Do All Day, presented by President Obama. It tells the stories of what work looks like (and means) to the American people on four different levels. I had to hit pause to take notes when President Obama answered the question of how he finds meaning in work:
A good job is where you feel seen, valued, and you might have a chance to grow.
Impact is built over time, over a series of steps, don’t be in a hurry to prove you can make an impact. Relax. Find out what matters to you.
To feel I have a place, a purpose, that I am doing something useful and it is being recognized. I do work that matters.
If that was true for the president of the United States, it could be true for all of us.
Live to 100: Secrets of Blue Zones, by American National Geographic Fellow and New York Times-bestselling author Dan Buettner. What I was able to get from Dan’s research, was more than just about how to live longer, but how to live out our lives the way life is intended: To use our bodies and hands in everyday life; to find our vocabulary for purpose and to be at peace; to take time to enjoy what we eat and enjoy “being you”, and to invest in what is important to us - ourselves, our family, and our friends. If I learn to do all these, then it does not matter what number of years I live to; because to do all these means I have truly lived.
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Thanks for sharing! Sharing is caring, I love to read what your thoughts and feedbacks on the books and movies! My fav as always 🌹
You are a voracious reader. Thank you so much for sharing your reading list. I'd like to share one book I read a while back "the perfect mile", which I enjoyed very much.