theblogbitme

I saw a video on the New York Times today that was really incredible. If you have time, check out An Angel in Queens. It is about a man who decided to start feeding day laborers from the back of his pick up. His inspiration? He was once an immigrant who landed in New York with nothing as well. He starts cooking in the morning around 5am, goes to his regular job as a bus driver, comes back to finish up the meals, and heads out for distribution at 9:30 every night. And he hasn’t missed a night in 3 years.

I love Jane Eyre and it is probably one of my favorite novels of all time - definitely in the top 5 novels I would take with me on a desert island. This Thanksgiving weekend I was able to finally watch Masterpiece Theatre’s Jane Eyre. I had a good cry - many times over for the heroine that has become so much a part of myself. It originally aired in January 2007, but will air again at the end of December 07 and beginning of January 08. If you haven’t seen it yet, I highly recommend it - you can even tape it and watch it 10 months later! It is like a really good bottle of red wine - it just gets better and better.

Today I found this slightly disturbing article Why Women Read More Than Men. Despite the title, the article does not explain scientifically why women read more than men. However, it does list many observations that women are reading more these days than their male counterparts. According to the article:

One thing is certain: Americans—of either gender—are reading fewer books today than in the past. A poll released last month by The Associated Press and Ipsos, a market-research firm, found that the typical American read only four books last year, and one in four adults read no books at all.

Only 4 books? In a year? And one in four adults read no books at all? At first that number seems staggering. However, when I look at my own life, I realize that while I am a reader, my husband is not. He reads plenty, but it is all in cyberspace, while I love to lose myself in the imaginative world of the author. Another interesting point brought up by the article is:

Among avid readers surveyed by the AP, the typical woman read nine books in a year, compared with only five for men. Women read more than men in all categories except for history and biography.

It seems in a very general way that they are arguing in this article that women are more fiction readers and men more non-fiction. I think that is a very big stereotype, but again, due to personal experience, I must say that I read a lot of fiction, whereas my husband gravitates to more non-fiction short articles on the web. Again, very non-scientific, but an interesting conversation piece nonetheless.

So, what are you reading? Fiction, non-fiction, articles in cyberspace? Or are you one of the four adults who reads no books at all? I just finished reading Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver. It details how she and her family moved from Tuscon to a family farm in Virginia and tried to eat locally for a year, growing a large majority of the food themselves. I really enjoyed it and already made one of the recipes - will divulge in another post. Curiously, a non-fiction work. I just started a Kiran Desai novel Hullabaloo in the Guava Orchard, a fiction piece. It is too early to tell if I will like it, but will keep you posted.

I recently read The Brooklyn Follies by Paul Auster. I heard a many people rave about Paul Auster in grad school, but I hadn’t read any of his work myself until my Oregonian friend lent me this new novel. My Oregonian friend reads more than anyone I have met - even anyone I met while in grad school studying English literature! When she gave me the most recent stack to read, I picked what book to read first based on the opening. The Brooklyn Follies won hands down. The opening reads: “I was looking for a quiet place to die. Someone recommended Brooklyn, and so the next morning I traveled down there from Westchester to scope out the terrain.” I started reading and couldn’t put it down. In the middle of reading it, I actually was on a red-eye and still couldn’t put it down. My intrigue of the plot development and love of the writing style kept the pages turning despite my sleep deprived body trying to “sleep” as much as is possible in economy. I have another Minnesotan friend who is a very talented story teller. Listening to her tell a story is intoxicating. Her writing is much of the same - but, alas, she is not a writer, or so she tries to tell me. When I stumbled across this passage in The Brooklyn Follies, I immediately thought of her, and me…….and all the rest of those out there with those creeping doubts that you cannot write.

The former graduate student and literary scholar cleared his throat and begged to differ with me. There were no rules when it came to writing, he said. Take a close look at the lives of poets and novelists, and what you wound up with was unalloyed chaos, an infinite jumble of exceptions. That was because writing was a disease, Tom continued, what you might call an infection or influenza of the spirit, and therefore it could strike anyone at any time. The young and the old, the strong and the weak, the drunk and the sober, the sane and the insane. Scan the roster of the giants and semi-giants, and you would discover writers who embraced every sexual proclivity, every political bent, and every human attribute–from the loftiest idealism to the most insidious corruption. They were criminals and lawyers, spies and doctor, solders and spinsters, travelers and shut-ins. If no one could be excluded, what prevented an almost sixty-year-old ex-life insurance agent from joining their ranks? What law declared that Nathan Glass had not been infected by the disease?
I shrugged.
“Joyce wrote three novels,” Tom said. “Balzac wrote ninety. Does it make a difference to us now?”
“Not to me,” I said.
“Kafka wrote his first story in one night. Stendhal wrote The Charterhouse of Parma in forty-nine days. Melville wrote Moby Dick in sixteen months. Flaubert spent five years on Madame Bovary. Musil worked for eighteen years on The Man Without Qualities and died before he could finish. Do we care about any of that now?”

I love it. I love that once writers lure you into their world, they can convince the reader of anything. It’s like how I think I can sing when I listen to the Indigo Girls. But that’s another post. If you haven’t read Auster yet, pick something up. I am going out on a strong limb after some additional Auster internet searches, that you will be satisfied with many of his novels. If you are looking for a specific recommendation, pick up The Brooklyn Follies.

I keep hearing energy debates on how to tackle our dependence on oil and reduce our green house gas emissions. Today I read a report on how Spain is turning the debate into a real life test case. The article is Spain Runs Europe’s First Commercial Solar Plant. The plant is using the sun’s rays to heat water to run steam generators. If this solar energy plant works, this could be a real energy solution for sunny locales. It is exciting to see global warming move from a debate to a real world scenario.