Category Archives: First Monday Book Day

First Monday Book Day

FMBD: Firsts

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It's the end of the semester, so now I have some free time and I can really get after it and read some books.

I recently tried to quantify all the translated books I've read, and they pretty much fell into three categories: European, Latin American, and Murakami.* But there were no African writers and very few Asian writers (not even African writers writing in European languages).

This past month I listened to Ghachar Ghochar by Vivek Shanbhag - translated from Kannada (spoken in India) - it was a very short, but very well constructed family drama, with an undercurrent of violence.

And this month I'm picking up Beyond the Rice Fields by Naivo. This is the first Malagasy novel that has ever been translated into English. Madagascar is already so strange and interesting, so I'm excited to see what the book is like.

So I've been expanding my reading in that direction, what have you all been reading?

* one notable exception was Han Kang's The Vegetarian (from S. Korea)- which is hallucinogenically great.

First Monday Book Day

Read ’Em and Weep

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Minutes ago, I finished reading The Latehomecomer: A Hmong Family Memoir by Kao Kalia Yang. Near the book's end, Kalia's grandmother dies*, and I cried my way through the chapter. It occurs to me that I was fortunate to finish the book alone on my couch and not while riding the bus.

I don't believe that a book's ability to make a person cry is any way correlated to its literary merit. However, in this case the book is quite good by any measure.

What's the last book that made you cry?

*not a spoiler, she's an old woman and we're all going to die

First Monday Book Day

Chapter One

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I have fond memories of my mom reading chapter books to me when I was young. We went through all the Little House on the Prairie books* at a pace of one chapter per night, with me curled up next to her in bed. I also recall a summer car trip when she read Johnny Tremain out loud. I don't know that I even particularly liked the story of Johnny Tremain, but I know I loved being read to.

When I had children of my own, I was ready to follow my mother's example. Starting when the jalapeño was around 4, I tried reading him chapter books, but they just didn't hold his interest. There's certainly no shortage of picture books in the world, so it's not as if we were wanting for reading material! Still, I've been delighted that recently he's been taking more of an interest in chapter books. In the past few months, we've read and loved Armstrong & Charlie by Steven B. Frank, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by Roald Dahl, and The Girl Who Drew Butterflies: How Maria Merian's Art Changed Science by Joyce Sidman.

Do you have memories of a parent or other adult reading aloud to you--or reading a particular book to your child? And what have you been reading lately?

*I am certain she pointed out at least some of the problematic content related to Indians, though I think at the time a lot of that went completely over my head.

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First Monday Book Day

The YMAs, baby!

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So, are you all set for Monday? Got the webcast bookmarked so you're sure not to miss a single moment? Don't forget, it begins at exactly 9:00 a.m., central time!

Wait, what? You have no idea what I'm talking about? It's the YMAs! (Yes, I realize that the all-caps of the post title makes it look like I merely misspelled "yams." Hush.) It's one of my absolutely favorite days of the year! This is the day when the American Library Association (and a number of related groups) announces the winners of the Newbery Medal, the Caldecott Medal, and a host of other awards.

Were you a kid who went right for all those books with a shiny award sticker on the front cover? Or did you stay as far away form them as possible? Do you have a favorite Newbery or Caldecott winner?

While I loved both my elementary school library and my public library as a kid, I didn't care all that much about seeking out books that had won awards. That said, if I had to pick a favorite Newbery winner, it would without question be A Wrinkle in Time. Following that would probably be The Black Cauldron, in Lloyd Alexander's Chronicles of Prydain series. What about you?

First Monday Book Day

Cooking the Books

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We've talked about books, we've talked about cooking, but have we talked about cookbooks? I have my eye on the new cookbook from Smitten Kitchen (a.k.a. Deb Perelman) and am hoping it shows up under the Christmas tree later this month.

I know that there are approximately a bajillion recipes available on the internet for free, but I do still love a good cookbook. And far better to spill on a book than on my laptop! Do you have favorite cookbooks? Are there cookbooks you're eager to take a closer look at? Do share!

And of course, please share anything else you've been reading lately.

First Monday Book Day

BOO-ks!

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Did I scare you? Hey, I'm a little frightened by how long it's been since we've had a book post! Given that it's October, I figured it might be a good moment to talk about spooky books.

As it happens, I'm pretty much a wimp when it comes to scary books (or movies or whatever). I still remember the summer day when I was about 16 and I decided to read Jurassic Park because I had nothing else to do. I got through more than half the book that first day, and I then had nightmares about dinosaurs that night. I finished the book the following day and never picked up anything in that vein again!

At least I am able to handle scary picture books. Here are a few recent favorites:
Creepy Carrots by Aaron Reynolds, illus. Peter Brown
Creepy Pair of Underwear by Aaron Reynolds, illus. Peter Brown
Hailey's Halloween by Lisa Bullard, illus. Holli Conger
Hallowilloween by Calef Brown
Leo: A Ghost Story by Mac Barnett, illus. Christian Robinson

So what have you been reading since the last book post? Anything scary?

First Monday Book Day

Time and Place: Books Edition

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The topic of "Time and Place" songs and albums has come up around these parts a couple of times, but today it struck me that certain books fall into this category as well.

When I think of A Four-Sided Bed by Elizabeth Searle, I recall eating Reese's Pieces while sprawled my bed--a mattress on the floor of an unair-conditioned* apartment--in the summer of 1999.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows brings to mind a trip up north in the summer of 2007 when I could hardly tear myself away from the book to do anything else (including speaking to my family) until I'd finished it.

I love those books read during long hours in the summer when I could read with barely an interruption. There's little opportunity for that at the moment, but I trust that someday I'll be able to read that way again.

Are there books that take you back to a certain time and place? And what are you currently reading?

*I had no idea how that word was spelled until I looked it up just now.

First Monday Book Day

FMMD – The Economist

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First Monday Book Magazine Day - The Economist

I’ve been a subscriber to The Economist for many years. I like that it has kind of an external view of things (a different perspective than what I read in the daily online broadsheets). I also watch BBC World News.

I usually get it in the mail on Saturday, and a goal has been to get through the prior week’s version before the next one shows up (a goal often missed). In fact, one time I got so backed up that I cancelled the subscription, but then caved and re-upped. I’m at parity this week.

It’s where I often learn new words, like Iftar (first meal after Ramadan), bête noire (a person or thing that one dislikes), liguica (Portuguese smoked sausage with garlic), poisson d'avril (April fool), civvy street (civilian life).

I generally share the world views of The Economist editors (open markets, free trade, cultural liberalism).

I read The Economist from back to front (the obituary, world market charts, exotic job postings, book reviews, articles about natural selection (in markets, economies, insect-world, shopping behavior, etc.), then country-specific blats, and if I can’t get to the first part (recent news) that’s OK as I’ve heard all of that stuff on the Internet or radio.

They’ve got some standing opinion columns I enjoy – Johnson writes about language (e.g. Oxford comma – “We invited the strippers, JFK, and Stalin.” “We invited the strippers, JFK and Stalin.”) Schumpeter (business), Babbage (technology), Buttonwood (Finance), Lexington (US stuff), Charlemagne (EU stuff), Bagehot (British stuff).

As an analytics guy, I like their charts/graphs. Big Mac index is good. I find it interesting how they selectively pick which countries to include on their graphs. I’ve made several investment decisions based on their articles (SQM – huge win; NBG – win but right before Greece went kaput; and several disasters - genomics  startups comes to mind).

So, WGOM peeps, what books/magazines are you reading?

First Monday Book Day

Books, Books, Books

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Did you know that April 29 was Independent Bookstore Day?

As a kid and teen, I could spend ages at Waldenbooks or B. Dalton at the mall, and I was blown away the first time I visited the Hungry Mind in St. Paul. I don't make it to bookstores as often as I'd like these days, and I was thinking about where I have gone within the last year or so. The Red Balloon is the store I go to most often, particularly for events. They provide free gift wrapping year-round, which I appreciate every time I don't have to frantically wrap a birthday present at the last minute. I took the boys to an event at Wild Rumpus last spring and they loved it, though they were so caught up in looking at—and following—the various animals that inhabit the store that they hardly noticed the event.

It occurs to me that there are bookstores for adult books (as in: non-children's books) as well. Most of my books come from the library—I feel so lucky that Hennepin County has a fantastic library system and that I work just a short walk from Central Library. I did make it to Common Good Books for the first time last fall, and it was fun to see what they had on the shelves.

On my list to visit locally:
Ancestry Books
Birchbark Books
I'm not sure if Babycake's Book Stack has opened yet, but I'm curious about that one as well.

So . . . where do you get your books?

First Monday Book Day

Minnesota Books

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The Minnesota Book Awards took place last weekend, and I'm pleased to say that in 2016 I read two of the winning books. Hey, so what if one of them is a 32-page picture book with rather sparse text? It's also a delightfully transgressive tale of annelid love.

Laurie Hertzel summed up the awards better than I could--her article in the Star Tribune begins:

The finalists for the Minnesota Book Awards this year included a National Book Award winning-novelist, a New York Times bestselling writer, and a Newbery Medal-winning writer of children’s books. But this year’s Minnesota Book Awards bypassed these venerable writers and bestowed honors on a mostly new crop of authors.

The rest of the article--including a full list of winners--is here.

While the event is largely a celebration of Minnesota's literary culture, the speech that will stay with me the longest came from poet Sun Yung Shin, who spoke about the importance of listening to the voices of those who have long been marginalized. If I find her speech posted online (and I really hope it will be posted), I'll share a link here. In addition to being a poet, Shin also edited the anthology A Good Time for the Truth: Race in Minnesota, which I read last summer and highly recommend.

Along with recognizing writers (and occasionally illustrators), there's also a special award for a Minnesota book artist. This year the award went to Steven McCarthy for his project Wee Go Library. The project involved "harvesting" books from Little Free Libraries and modifying them in various ways. (Not to worry--he left a replacement book for every book he took from a LFL.) You can read more and see some photos of the finished projects here.

So what have you been reading?