Compare and Contrast: The Blue Sweater and The 10 Women You'll Be Before You're 35

It seems like we've taken a break from blogging (although admittedly, I'm usually a bit delinquent), but I figured I would start it back up since I will miss our next meeting when we discuss The Blue Sweater: Bridging the Gap Between Rich and Poor in an Interconnected World by Jacqueline Novogratz. I really enjoyed The Blue Sweater. I admire Novogratz's work and sincere ambition to change the world. My one challenge with the book was that at times, Novogratz made it seem too easy--that anyone could go from international banking to the Rockefeller Foundation to beginning one's own nonprofit. Clearly, Novogratz had unusually amazing opportunities--and to her credit acknowledges them as such--but for those if us without those opportunities, is giving to Kiva enough?

I also recently read a book that I would categorize as Self-Help-Chick Lit: The 10 Women You'll Be Before You're 35 by Alison James. Boy, did these two books contrast! On one hand Novogratz is out truly changing the world in her 20s and early 30s, and James is writing about the party girl, the body conscious babe and the crisis chick. In her book, James describes stereotypes of women that we will be at some point in our 20s and 30s. And while my personality or lifestyle never encompassed any individual stereotype, I certainly relate to elements of almost every "woman that I will be" described by James.

Unlike me, Novogratz does not seem to share many of the qualities described by James. She seems to be above it all. I am not sure if she is really above it all or if that is just the perception I get from the book. (And I am leaning toward the latter.) Although Novogratz does not deny her weaknesses in The Blue Sweater, at times, she seems a little too good to be true.

What do you think? Can we all aspire to be like Novogratz and change the world? How do we balance our desire to do good with our real life idiosyncrasies?

Tragedy on Mt. Everest

"Four hundred vertical feet above, where the summit was still washed in bright sunlight under an immaculate cobalt sky, my compadres dallied to memorialize their arrival at the apex of the planet, unfurling flags and snapping photos, using up precious ticks of the clock. None of them imagined that a horrible ordeal was drawing nigh. Nobody suspected that by the end of that long day, every minute would matter." Chapter One, p. 9

Because famed mountaineer/filmmaker David Breashears was exhibiting his photos at Asia Society in July, I became intrigued with this small detail in his biography concerning the 1996 Mt. Everest disaster. So I hunted down a copy of Jon Krakauer's account of the events, his gripping novel, Into Thin Air: A Personal Account of the Mt. Everest Disaster (1996).

All I can say is, this book was very hard to put down once I started reading. Krakauer is such a great writer, the events are nail-biting and filled with a horrific suspense, even when you know from the beginning the outcome and deaths that happened.

Krakauer was part of the team that experienced the most loss of human lives. His mission in joining Adventure Consultants expedition team was to write about the commercialization of climbing expeditions to Everest. What he experiences is more than he originally signed up for. The disastrous outcome deeply scars him, and the book is in part a memoir of the events that remind us all of just how dangerous mountaineering, and Mt. Everest, can be. Krakauer weaves into the tragedy the history of climbing on Mt. Everest and other important storylines that all shed light on the 1996 disaster- the lives and culture of the Sherpas, the evolution of climbing culture and equipment on Everest, high-altitude effects on the human body, and the personalities that have survived, or perished, in the May 1996 climbing season.

I hope you will also get a chance to check out David's photos of Mt. Everest online: http://sites.asiasociety.org/riversofice/

An Education by Lynn Barber

I recently finished An Education, a memoir by the British journalist Lynn Barber. A chapter from the book inspired the film of the same name, which was released last year and nominated for an Oscar for "Best Picture." Lynn recounts her childhood growing up in the suburbs of London, bored by her conventional surroundings and itching for a bigger, brighter life. She has her eyes set on Oxford University until, when she turns sixteen, she meets a mysterious, worldly older man, Simon, who introduces her to a life-style that seems far more interesting than college. Simon takes her to expensive restaurants, gallery auctions, weekend trips to Europe - he even charms her parents and gets their seal of their approval to date their young daughter.

Lynn and Simon soon get engaged and Lynn ditches her plans to attend Oxford. But it turns out that Simon isn't who he says he is (he's something of a conman, which the movie does a great job of depicting), and they break their engagement. Luckily, Lynn is able to take the necessary exams for Oxford and is accepted to the college. The remainder of her memoir recounts her experiences at Oxford where she spends most of her time "studying men" (she claims to have slept with fifty of them during her second year), working as an editor at Penthouse, becoming a "sex expert" (writing a book called How to Improve your Man in Bed), and becoming an esteemed newspaper journalist. Best of all, and most moving, is the section where Lynn details her husband's battle with myelofibrosis and cancer and its effect on their thirty year marriage.

Lynn was a headstrong, sexually liberated woman at a time when this was frowned upon. Her memoir offers an insightful and often humorous view on how she broke free of conventional views and became an interesting, dynamic woman in her own right.

Commencement by J. Courtney Sullivan

I recently read Commencement as part of another book club I'm in. As the bn.com website says: "This radiant debut novel from J. Courtney Sullivan examines the deep bonds of friendship and the complex landscape facing today's young women. Celia, Bree, Sally, and April arrive at Smith College as four very different people. But the years bring them closer together, so once they graduate and face the real world, they realize they need each other more than ever."

It was an interesting read for me on many levels. One, it's set at Smith College in Northampton, MA which is a college that I had been to during summers in high school for field hockey camp, so I was extremely familiar with the area and the college. Two, it's a really interesting look at the relationships between women and the idea that while we can rely on each other for advice, encouragement, and even sometimes discouragement, there's also a level of competition that's not always discussed.

I didn't go to an all girls high school or college, but I can see why some women choose them. There's a certain comfort level that you assume you'll have where you know that they are all going through the same experience with you and can certainly relate on that level more than a man would. If you're heterosexual, there's also the fact that most people feel that not having men around would lessen your distractions and therefore, there would be more of a focus on their academic studies. And when you graduate, there's a camaraderie that it built in. But then again, I went to a mixed high school and college and don't think that I have any less camaraderie with my girl friends or any less of a lasting bond.

What do you think about all girl colleges? Are you for or against them?

Zeitoun

I recently finished up Zeitoun by Dave Eggers. Unlike What is the What, another Egger's novel, which is based on a true story, Zeitoun is the actual story of the Zeitoun family. Zeitoun tells the story of a Muslim family living in New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina. Eggers uses a day-by-day approach to tracking the story and the subsequent events that impact the family.

The book provides an accurate account of the historical events associated with Hurricane Katrina, while shedding light on the experience of those who stayed in New Orleans to wait out the storm. I was shocked to read about the discrimination and profiling that took place during Katrina. I was unaware that the National Guard set up a make shift prison in a New Orleans bus station and that the police were imprisoning residents of the city without cause.

This is the second book I've read about Katrina (the first was for school--Disaster: Hurricane Katrina and the Failure of Homeland Security), and I really appreciated the personal lens of Zeitoun.

Spider Eaters: Memories of the Cultural Revolution

The title of Rae Yang's memoir derives from a saying by Chinese writer Lu Xun:
Some of our ancestors must have bravely attempted to eat crabs so that we would learn they were edible. Trials with spiders were not so enjoyable. Our ancestors suffered their bitter taste and spared us their poison.

Rae Yang herself was a spider eater, when she became a Red Guard and joined the full fury that was the Cultural Revolution at the age of fifteen.

Yang's memoir is a careful balance between her recorded thoughts and memories of her younger self with her feelings and reflections of the author at present. Easy to read, the book describes Yang's life in Beijing growing up during the 1950s and through the tumultuous 60's, blending together dreams, first hand experiences and stories, real and imagined, spoken to her by relatives and friends.

Particulary interesting are the chapters describing her re-education on the pig farm in northeast China. If you read this book and are unfamiliar with Chinese history/society, it is important to note how the hukou system works. The hukou system, meaning household registration, registers citizens within China to the village, town, or city into which they are born/have residence. It limited the migration of rural immigrants into the city, thus keeping a large supply of cheap labor for state-owned companies under China's old command system. This is still partially true today. Although Yang was a Beijing resident, her move to the northeast caused her hukou to be sent there. She was in danger of remaining a peasant with no way of transferring her hukou back to Beijing. I would equate this to if you decided to go out to Kansas to become a farmer for a few years. Here in the US you can always decide that farming is not for you and return to New York City, or move to a completely new city or state for that matter. In China, you would have to apply to leave the farm, and that was very difficult. (I may have over-simplified or incorrectly stated this, but that is my understanding of it so far.)

My questions: How truthful and factual do you find memoirs to be? If written many years after the event/experience took place, do you think the added time sheds more light on the truth of the events, or erases essential pieces?

NYTimes recently published this article about preserving the history of the Cultural Revolution.

At Home in the Woods: Reading Bill Bryson's A Walk in the Woods

In May, I came home to New York after almost two years abroad on the other side of the world. Thrust back among once familiar sights and sounds, immersed again in the English language, awashed in American culture and media, I felt extremely lost. I had always heard about the culture shock one experiences when living in a foreign country. It was mentioned during a Fulbright conference that actually it was the re-culture shock that was far worse than the initial culture shock. I didn’t realize until I moved back home just how right this was.

To re-acquaint myself with my old American life, I decided one day to go for a walk in Harriman State Park near my house in New York. The woods felt comforting and familiar, a place I had walked through since I was as child. With vivid, bright, new spring greens enveloping me, I felt once again grounded, a connection between a place strongly anchored to my sense of “home,” and an activity I did frequently in Hong Kong, China and the US: hiking.

Along the trail, I found a signpost jabbed into the ground stating that I was actually walking along the Appalachian Trail. The “AT” is that famous trail which runs an unimaginable 2175+ miles, give or take, from Maine to Georgia. It was amazing to think that if I stayed on this trail, I could end up in either of those states. Then I began imagining actually trying to hike the whole trail, and how I would do it. How much food would I have to bring? How would I ever carry enough stuff for this exponentially long hiking trip?

In June, while helping to clean out old books at my father’s house for a yard sale, I found the copy of Bill Bryson’s A Walk In The Woods, a travel memoir of the author’s experience along the AT. I had bought the book for Dad a few Christmases ago (although he presumably never read it), and I decided to re-gift it back to myself and find answers to all my AT questions.

Bryson had the crazy idea to hike the entire AT after a day hike on the portion of the AT trail that ran near his house in Hanover, NH. Bryson too had just returned to the US after having spent 20 years in England. He was going to hike the trail to re-discover the country of his birth.

The book got me laughing from the start.

"So I decided to do it [hike the AT]. More rashly, I announced my intention - told friends and neighbors, confidently informed my publisher, made it common knowledge among those who knew me. Then I bought some books... It required only a little light reading in adventure books and almost no imagination to envision circumstances in which I would find myself caught in a tightening circle of hunger-emboldened wolves, staggering and shredding clothes under an onslaught of pincered fire ants, or dumbly transfixed by the sight of enlivened undergrowth advancing towards me, like a torpedo through water, before being bowled backwards by a sofa-sized boar with cold beady eyes, a piercing squeal, and slaverous, chopping appetite for pink, plump, city-softened flesh."

It also brought back memories of my grizzly bear encounter in Yellowstone Park in May too.

"My particular dread--the vivid possibility that left me staring at tree shadows on the bedroom ceiling night after night--was having to lie in a small tent, alone in an inky wilderness, listening to a foraging bear outside and wondering what its intentions were. I was especially riveted by an amateur photograph in Herrero's book, taken late at night by a camper with a flash at a campground out West. The photograph caught four black bears as they puzzled over a suspended food bag. The bears were clearly startled but not remotely alarmed by the flash. It was not the size or demeanor of the bears that troubled me--they looked almost comically nonaggressive, like four guys who had gotten a Frisbee caught up a tree--but their numbers. Up to that moment it had not occurred to me that bears might prowl in parties. What on earth would I do if four bears came into my camp? Why, I would die, of course. Literally shit myself lifeless. I would blow my sphincter out my backside like one of those unrolling paper streamers you get at children's parties--I daresay it would even give a merry toot--and bleed to a messy death in my sleeping bag."

Bryson also balances his personal narratives with interesting side-stories and history abou the Appalachian Trail. I learned many interesting things about America I never knew.

Did you know....?

1. What happened to the American chestnut tree?

2. What is largest job the US Forest Service undertakes?

3. What do you do if you see a bear?

The best part about the book for me was that Bryson, like myself, is not an extreme hiker or mountaineer. He is a simple every-day man, attuned and accustomed to the convenience of modern day life, in all its fast-food, shopping mall, parking lot filled glory. The second best part of the book is his equally hilarious companion, Katz.

I read the book on my commute between New Jersey and New York City. While rather ugly industrial landscapes, land flat as the eye could see, and suburban sprawl in 360 degrees rolled by the bus window, I was transported to one of my favorite places to be: lost among the trees of a New England forest.

Just this past weekend, inspired by the book, I took to the woods once again. Armed with an old hiking book with trail maps (circa 1971) I also found in my Dad’s collection, I set out on a four and a half hour hike through Bear Mountain. I walked the Appalachian Trail for a few hours, and thought about how Bryson described it. Hiking alone was a new adventure ( I admit I was slightly worried about getting murdered), but I also at once felt calm and peaceful, despite the sounds of gunfire practice from West Point and the rip-roaring bursts of noisy motorcycles that broke the silence. I spotted a pair of wild turkey, saw wild raspberries, a bright orange shelf-like tree mushroom (Laetiporus), and a wasp nest. Sweaty and tired, I was a hiker again, and I was at home.

Let the Great World Spin by Colum McCann

I really enjoyed this novel. It’s been on my reading list ever since I read glowing reviews of it from the New York Times and various blogs last year. It’s set in New York City in 1974 and centers around the day Philip Petite walked across a wire set between the World Trade Center towers (Man on Wire, a great documentary that came out a couple years ago details how Petite planned and executed his extraordinary walk).

The novel follows a set of characters whose lives intersect on that day and in the months and years that follow. Each chapter is told from the perspective of a different character – a young Irish monk, a prostitute, a wealthy Upper East Side housewife, a judge, a hippie painter, etc. They all come from very different walks of life, and it’s interesting to watch their lives intertwine with one another. I loved the descriptions of New York City, how different and kind of dangerous it was back then. The novel also touches upon 9/11 in a subtle way, I think. It shows a day that could have turned out tragic (i.e. what if Philip Petite had fallen or been knocked down) but turned out to be uplifting (his walk brought thousands of people on the streets of the city, cheering) unlike what happened decades later. I highly recommend this book; it's a really great read.

A Reliable Wife by Robert Goolrick

I just finished "A Reliable Wife" recently and liked it so much, I thought I should post about it. The novel is by Robert Goolrick and has been on the Top 10 NY Times Bestsellers list for weeks now.

The story is set in 1907 Wisconsin and begins with a man (Ralph Truitt) posting an ad in the paper for a "reliable wife". A mysterious woman (Catherine Land) replies and we are immediately told that she has no interest in falling in love with this man, but instead plans on leaving him once she has secured his fortunes. However, both people share secrets that the other is not aware of and those secrets begin to soon surface and changes the course of both of their lives.

I don't want to say anything more because I'm recommending that you read this, but I do have to say that this novel is one sweeping drama that takes you on a very fun ride. Read it!

To Kill A Mockingbird - Novel to Film #4

We read "To Kill A Mockingbird" by Harper Lee a few months ago, but since no one has posted about it yet, I thought I should start the conversation. I feel like everyone who goes to school in America ends up coming across this novel at some point in their academic history, so that alone separates this novel from others. It's a classic, a "must read". And while I had read it a very long time ago, it was nice to read it again and refresh my memory of the characters. I also re-watched the film that starred Gregory Peck (which one him an Oscar) and while there are a few things that are omitted from the novel, I think it stays true to what the core of the novel is about.

I love that the novel is centered around the two children, Scout and Jem. You see things so much simpler through their eyes and they question things is such an honest way. They are children, but they are able to see right and wrong better than the adults because they aren't jaded or influenced by life's lessons yet.

I also appreciated how the novel deals with race relations in such a tender, yet firm hand and there's never any ambiguity that choosing to treat others differently based on the color of their skin is acceptable or fair. But it's presented in such a way that says that although things are the way they are now, that doesn't mean that they'll be that way forever and you shouldn't be discouraged against your belief in the good of people. I will definitely be adding this to my children's bookshelf for them to read when they are old enough.

What did everyone else think of the novel? Did anyone else see the film? What were your thoughts?

The Help

After many recommendations from family and friends, I read The Help by Kathryn Stockett and really enjoyed it. The book takes place in Jackson, Mississippi and chronicles a few years in the lives of a group of friends and their "help," their maids. The novel takes place in the 1960s, and race relations is a major theme throughout.

Having only visited Jackson once (and that was in the 1990s), it was informative to read about segregation from the perspectives of both the white housewives and their black maids. Each chapter is told from the perspective of one of the main characters. I don't want to give anything away about the plot, but I do wonder how authentic the various voices are. Stockett has received some criticism as a white woman writing in the voices of black women--that even in a fiction book, she would not be able to capture the maids' experiences.

What do you think? Does one owns experience impact one's ability to tell the story of an other's experience?

WATER FOR ELEPHANTS

Water for Elephants is a historical novel by Sara Gruen. The novel centers on Jacob Jankowski and his experiences in a travelling circus called The Benzini Brothers Most Spectacular Show on Earth. This one had been on my "to read" list for a while now since it was on the NY Times Bestsellers List, but once I heard that it was going to be turned into a film, it quickly rose to the top. Hehe.

The novel is told through Jacob's perspective when he is an old man living in a nursing home reminiscing about his time working in the circus in his early 20s. The dynamic that develops between Jacob, the dysfunctional foreman, and his beautiful wife is the main cause of drama in the novel and had me turning the pages quickly to find out what was going to happen. I don't want to give too much away because I would definitely recommend this for you ladies to read. The film will star Robert Pattinson, Christoph Waltz, and Reese Witherspoon, so as I was reading the novel, I visualized them as the characters and I think it made the story come more alive for me.

What do you think about reading novels that already have a film adaptation or one in production? Does it help you get a clearer image of the characters or would you rather be able to come up with your own visual of the characters?

PREP

I read PREP after AMERICAN WIFE (completely randomly) which is a story about a girl who moves from her hometown in the Mid West to attend a swanky boarding school on the East Coast. The chapters are divided into semesters of the year and you see the main character as she attempts to make friends in the first year among her very privileged peers, endure boy crushes and family embarrassment, all the while just trying to fit in. It was a really interesting read, especially since it was almost like they were going off to college instead of high school. College is normally the first time that you are really away from your parents and able to make most of your own decisions. There's no parental guidance, but the teachers and headmaster are there to make sure you follow the rules.

I actually enjoyed the book. Did any of you read it?

Did any of you go to a boarding school? What were your experiences like there?

And the Band Played On

It's take me almost a month, but I finally finished And the Band Played On by Randy Shilts. Originally published in 1987, And the Band Played On is a non-fiction account of the founding of AIDS and the HIV virus. Shlits, who reported for the San Francisco Chronicle, tells the story of the discovery of AIDS through people infected by the disease. He intersperses the individual narratives with the politics and science involved in the founding of AIDS. (If you've read/watched any movies about Harvey Milk, many of the characters in the book will be familiar. For example, Bill Kraus and Cleve Jones, both very involved with San Francisco politics, are characters.)

As the Band Played On is an incredibly informative read and very interesting. It's dense at times, although Shilts does a good job at explaining the political jargon. Having not yet been born when AIDS was discovered, I was surprised to read how little media coverage AIDS received. I also realized how little I know about the gay liberation movement of the '70s. Today, discrimination against gays comes in the form of banning same-sex marriage or in issues related to adoption. In the late '70s and early '80s, discrimination against gays came in the form of ignoring a disease that was killing people!

It's truly amazing how far we've come in fighting AIDS. I'm going to try to find a book that chronicles the progression of AIDS research through the late '80s and '90s. With the book ending in 1987, it seems like there is so much of this story to tell.

Have any of your read And the Band Played On or seen the movie? What did you think?

A People's History of the United States: 1492-Present

I'd like to recommend Howard Zinn's A People's History of the United States. The book covers major moments in American history starting from 1492 (Christopher Columbus's discovery of America, The First and Second World Wars, Vietnam, etc). The version I read ends in the 1970s, but there's an updated version that goes through the 1990s. Zinn writes about hisorical events from the perspective of how they affected everyday people. For example, when he writes about Columbus, he focuses more on the Native Americans, showing how they struggled and failed to hold to their land. He also argues that it's the American people who've shaped the laws of the country rather than political leaders. He shows how working-class people played a pivitol role in ensuring that the government passed Civil Rights, Women's Rights and Worker's laws amongst a host of other important legislation. I like Zinn's writing style a lot; it's clear and simple, not stuffy at all. Really enjoyed the book and discovering new things I was unaware of in our history.

AMERICAN WIFE

I recently read American Wife by Curtis Sittenfeld which is a "fictional" account of a woman's life from childhood to adulthood where she ends up marrying a man who eventually becomes president. Anyone who reads this book can't help but see the parallels between the book's protagonist and Laura Bush's life. She was a teacher. She married a man who came from a very wealthy family. He had a drinking problem. He recovered and became governor and then president.

With all of these similarities, it was hard to know what was true and what wasn't true, but that didn't stop me from really enjoying the book. I felt like even though it wasn't a biography of the First Lady, I felt like I identified with her and respected her more than ever. This may be a false sense of those things since I don't know what's true and what's not true. But if it is true, then Laura Bush is a strong lady who had been through a lot in her life, even before George Bush ever came in the picture. And then dealing with all of his issues and the pressures of being in the public eye while still keeping her own identity in tact--wow. She just seems so inspiring as a woman who really tried to keep all of her priorities in perspective.

But it did bother me that there are parts to the story that aren't real and therefore I really shouldn't be taking all of it so seriously. I was surprised that Laura Bush didn't sue Sittenfeld for changing her story so much, but I'm also not sure what the law is for public figures who have things written about them.

Does anyone know how that works?

Has anyone else read this book? Have you read Sittenfeld's other book Prep?

Got Faith?

I remember reading Tuesdays with Morrie by Mitch Albom when I was 16. Even as a teenager, I found Albom's portrayal of his teacher and mentor Morrie and his life lessons meaningful and inspiring. I found Have a Little Faith: A True Story, Albom's most recent novel, to be equally as inspiring.

After being asked to write and deliver the eulogy for his childhood rabbi "Reb" (Reb makes this request himself of Albom), Albom spends eight years learning about Reb and the meaning of faith. In his recounting of his meetings with Reb, Albom intertwines the story of a Detroit Pastor, Henry. Much like Morrie, Have a Little Faith is full of life lessons. And although the main characters in the novel are a rabbi and a pastor, it is not about religion--it is about faith and what it means to have faith. Albom does not describe himself as religious before his meetings with Reb, and I'm not sure he would describe himself as religious after those meetings.

What do you think about faith? Is it something intricately tied into religion, or is it something that you have have even without religious beliefs?

Lord Carew's Bride

I'm excited to be putting up my first Books and the City! blog post.

I remember when I first saw Beauty and the Beast as I kid. It wasn't my favorite of the Disney fairy tales (I believe the honor fell to Snow White at the time) but it was a hauntingly beautiful story. After seeing it though, a question stuck in my mind: "How could Beauty love the Beast?" Now, as an adult who has seen some life (barely :)), the question that comes to mind is "How could Beauty not love the Beast?" He was potrayed as a man of substance, and isn't a man's substance more important than his trappings? When it comes to true love, shouldn't what's beneath the surface matter more than what is the surface?

Well, my attraction to stories about people who fall in like and then love for "what's beneath the surface" led me to buy Mary Balogh's newly re-released book, Lord Carew's Bride, a week ago. And when the 300-page book was delivered a few days ago, I sat down with it and devoured it within five hours. I've always found Ms. Balogh to be an engaging author and, with Lord Carew's Bride, she has outdone herself again.

Lord Carew's Bride is a modern day (nay Regency Age) Beauty and the Beast. It's about a beauty nursing a broken heart, the disabled gardener she finds solace with and the special companionship they develop. Throw in the scoundrel who broke the beauty's heart and the fact that the gardener is a marquess in disguise and you've got a delicious romp of a love triangle. I really enjoyed this story and I recommend it.

Snow Flower and the Secret Fan News!

Hugh Jackman Joins 'Snow Flower and the Secret Fan'

• February 3, 2010
• |
• By: Leonard Jacobs
• Comments (0)

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Call it a leading role, call it an unbilled cameo. Either way, one thing is clear: Wolverine is headed to China.

According to the Hollywood Reporter, Hugh Jackman has joined the cast of 'Snow Flower and the Secret Fan,' helmed by Chinese-American director Wayne Wang.

Set during the 19th century, the story follows Snow Flower and Lily, two friends who struggle with the social and cultural norms of the time.

Given the storyline, it is unclear how large Jackman's role will be. The Reporter quoted local Chinese media as characterizing his role as the male lead; however, Jackman's publicist is insisting that the star is doing an "unbilled cameo."

Jackman is said to begin filming at the end of the month.

In the meantime, Jackman joins the project following the exit of its female lead, Zhang Ziyi. According to the report, Ziyi's exit was due to scheduling conflicts with Wong Kar-wai's 'The Grand Master.' Replacing her will be actress Li Bingbing.

'Snow Flower' also stars South Korean actress Jeon Ji-Hyun.

Just Kids

I recently finished Just Kids, a memoir by the rock singer and poet Patti Smith and really enjoyed it. In her memoir, Smith recounts moving from New Jersey to New York City when she was 19 in the late 60s with a dream of becoming an artist. She is unsure of what type of artist she wants to be, but desires to make a name for herself in art. She ends up meeting a cute boy named Robert Mapplethorpe, who also wants to be an artist, and the book charts their rise into the art and music world. Smith struggled quite a bit during her first few yeas in the city; she had little money and found herself sleeping in Central Park for a few nights. Somehow, she held on to her dream and, since then, she has developed a successful career. I think her music's pretty great.

I loved how Smith describes New York City in the 60s - chockfull of so much creative energy. People seemed really energized to create art, music and be involved in politics. Smith also describes other artists she encounters during that time: she meets Jimi Hendrix in front of his recording studio in the East Village, parties with Janis Joplin in a hotel room, hooks up with the playwright Sam Shepard at a concert. Smith wasn't famous at the time, but she was still able to talk to and hang out with pretty famous people. I don't imagine she'd have the same access to such people today. There seemed to be less of a divide between famous and non-famous people in those days.

I don't read memoirs often, but I liked this one so much I'd like to read more. Are there any memoirs you'd recommend reading?

Another Lisa See: Snow Flower and the Secret Fan

From my post last month about Shanghai Girls, it is clear that I am thoroughly enamored with Lisa See. I finished Snow Flower and the Secret Fan this week--another informative read. Like Shanghai Girls, Snow Flower and the Secret Fans is a sorrowful read.

Snow Flower and the Secret Fan takes place in the 1800s and centers around the relationship of two loatong, "old-sames." Snow Flower and Lily signed their laotong contract at the age of seven basically agreeing to be best friends for life. Having a laotong raised one's status and marriageability and enabled Lily and Snow Flower to have a friendship that went beyond their childhood "daughter days" into their adolescent "hair-pinning days" into their married "rice and salt days." Most women's friendships ended when they got married and moved to a new village, but laotong, like Snow Flower and Lily, communicated through letters using nu shu--phonetic writing exclusive to women.

In addition to following the joyous, sorrowful and surprising moments of Lily and Snow Flower's friendship, the book also gave graphic and fascinating accounts of foot binding and a picture of the women's realm in 19th century China. While men where (and are?) clearly favored in Chinese society, the women had a unique culture all their own.

Have you ever heard of nu shu? Does anyone know when both Chinese women and men began to use the same alphabet?

The Witches of Eastwick - Novel to Film #3

As our 3rd choice in our "novel to film" round, we read "The Witches of Eastwick" by John Updike. As we discussed at brunch today, this film definitely deviated from the film in enough ways to make it noticeable and I think that I preferred the version on film as opposed to the version in the novel.

For one, the women in the novel are not sympathetic characters at all. They sleep with everyone in their neighborhood (single or married) and constantly neglect their children. They only use their powers to enact petty revenge on those who they are annoyed by. I felt like Updike was purposely making these women so vile that no one could identify with them. As though this was a snapshot of the evilness of women in general. Perhaps Updike had some serious issues with women. What do you think?

They definitely made the women more identifiable in the film and certainly more likable. I mean, who couldn't like Cher, Michelle Pfeiffer, or Susan Sarandon? And they also added a bit of humor, which I appreciated over the dryness of the novel. Did anyone else feel like the novel was dry?

What are your other thoughts on the novel?

The Power and the Glory by Graham Greene

Last month, I finished reading The Power and the Glory by Graham Greene, which I loved.

The story takes place in Mexico in the 1930s in a town where Catholic priests are being persecuted by anti-religious town officials. The priests are asked to give up preaching and giving confessions or risk losing their lives (the officials believe the priests are tainting the townspeople's minds with religious lies). One priest, however, continues to do his vocation and, in turn, is given a death verdict. Essentially, he has to run away from the town and hide from the town officials. There is an overzealous police lieutenant who will do anything (including murder innocent townspeople) to catch him.

The priest is a wonderful character. He is not what you would consider a "holy" person. He is an alcoholic (he drinks so much that he's called "whisky" priest) and has a child out-of-wedlock. He often questions his faith; he bristles at people who are too eager to show they have good faith; he is attracted to wayward people, lost souls. His spiritual beliefs, though complex, are true and pure. As he travels around the country, he is able to affect the various people he encounters with his words and actions.

The novel explores religion in a very interesting way and asks some tough questions. What does it mean to be a spiritual person or a so -called "good" person? Are religious people (i.e priests) quacks or do they have the potential to change people's lives? I might be making the novel sound more serious than it is. More than anything, it is an entertaining read, a real page turner. Greene was an avid moviegover, and his novels were greatly influenced by film. The Power and the Glory, in particular, reads like a first-rate thriller, a road movie and western all rolled into one. It's an enchanting book that also enlightened me.

Twenties Girl

After reading "The Witches of Eastwick", I was looking for something super light that I didn't have to use too many brain cells on and "Twenties Girl" by Sophie Kinsella (of "Shopoholic" fame) was a perfect fit. I have to admit, I wasn't sure that I would like it all that much, but I had it on my shelf from when I got the book from a gift bag and just figured I'd give it a try.

I haven't read the "Shopoholic" series, but I did see the film which I did enjoy (even though it came out at the height of the recession madness). Did anyone else see it?

Anyway, the story is set in London and is about this girl named Lara who has just started a new business with her best friend, consulting for big corporations looking for executives. Unfortunately for Lara, her friend (who is the one who actually has the experience in the field) has up a left her suddenly to go on vacation with a new boyfriend and has no immediately plans to return.

At the same time, Lara is forced to attend her great aunt Sadie's funeral (she lived to be 105!) and is shocked when the ghost of Sadie starts talking to her and demanding that she find a necklace that she owned before she died. At that point, all kinds of craziness gets under way.

I actually thought that this was a fun, light-hearted story and I even was thinking how it might work as a film. There would definitely be plenty of elements to play with and it would be interesting to see how the ghost could be be portrayed.

Has anyone else read this or any of Kinsella's other books?

Factory Girls by Leslie Chang

Imagine this is your workday:

You wake up from your bunk bed in a cramped dorm room for eight, and with the morning alarm promptly ringing at 6am you are up and fighting for use of the bathroom with all the other women on your dorm floor. By 7am you have eaten in the factory cafeteria along with the other 50,000 employees in the factory complex. That’s right- the factory employs over 70,000 people, more than the population of a small American city! After breakfast you are stationed on your assembly line team. Your task: to cut the upper materials that will eventually become the body for sneakers of famous brands like Puma, Nike, Adidas, and many others. You do this for 12 hours everyday, with a 1 hour lunch break and dinner break. You finish work by 9 or 10pm and return to your dorm to begin a new day tomorrow. It’s only Monday, and you still have 5 more days of work before your one Sunday off. You make roughly 1,000 rmb a month- $160.

Such is the life of many factory girls in China, yet their move from the farming villages into working conditions such as these are seen as a success and a triumph for millions of migrant women.

Leslie Chang offers a fascinating glimpse into the lives of real young migrant women in China, girls our age, who move from their rural villages to bustling centers like Shenzhen, Dongguan and Guangzhou, all of a two hour train ride away from Hong Kong. Simultaneously, Chang also weaves in her family’s own personal history in China. And for once it felt very satisfying to get a Chinese American’s perspective on all the happenings of modern China. She is also the wife of writer Peter Hessler, who wrote two great books on teaching and living in China- Buki has the one I traded at our book swap, Oracle Bones.

Whenever I read books about China, I always reflect upon my own experiences there, and I feel like I’m re-living much of it all over again. Chang provides amusing and humorous glimpses into facets of Chinese society I may never encounter, making the book a fast and entertaining read. I also really appreciated the way in which she worked in the personal story of her family, as I felt it was something I have been wanting to do with my own experiences in learning about my family’s history in China and Hong Kong.

Another favorite scene in the book is when she writes about one of the main characters who works in a handbag factory. It turns out that the handbag factory makes purses for Coach, but the girl and her fellow workers never really understand the true value of how much the bags are worth, trading them among friends and never really using them.

Hope you will all get a chance to read this!

Shanghai Girls

I've spent the last month reading like a mad woman. While I'm really enjoying school, it's so nice to be able to read for pleasure. Of the books I've read in the past few weeks (I may blog about a few of the others later), Shanghai Girls by Lisa See was by far the most fascinating.

The book follows the lives of two sisters from (you guessed it) Shanghai from the 1930s to the 1950s. I don't want to give away too many details about the story because I think those of you who choose to read it will enjoy discovering them for yourself, but anyone with a sister or a close friend will appreciate the relationship between the two sisters Pearl and May. The story of Pearl and May travels from Shanghai to the U.S. after a suprising turn of events.

In addition to its engaging narrative, I particularly enjoyed learning a little bit about Chinese history from Shanghai Girls. I wasn't aware of the turbulent relationship between the Chinese and Japanese in the late '30s and '40s, and while I was somewhat aware of the immigration challenges in the U.S. mid-century, Shanghai Girls provided me with additional insight and perspective.

During my visit to Florida last weekend, I borrowed Snow Flower and the Secret Fan, also by Lisa See, from my grandmother (we did a Lisa See book exchange), and I am excited to get started on it sooon.

Has anyone else read any books by Lisa See? If so, what are your thoughts?

The Elegance of the Hedgehog

I recently read "The Elegance of the Hedgehog" by Muriel Barbery and while it took me almost half of the book to finally get into it, at the end I felt like it was well worth it. The novel was originally printed in French and was on the New York Times Bestseller list.

The story is mainly about an older woman who works as a concierge in an apartment building and a young girl who lives in the apartment building with her family. Both women are extremely smart and feel completely isolated from the world because of it. The older woman is of a lower station and therefore keeps her intelligence a secret for fear of others around her treating her badly because of it. The young girl comes from a wealthy family but her intellect separates her from her family who only seem to care about the most insignificant and trivial things in life. Both women's lives are changed forever when a new tenant moves into the apartment building.

I won't say anything more than that so that I don't ruin anything for anyone who wants to read it, but I was really touched by this story. Has anyone else read this? What were your thoughts?

Gomorrah - Novel to Film #2

The next book on the "novel to film" list was Gomorrah by Roberto Saviano. I had watched the film when it came out last year and was not impressed by what I saw at all. I know that there were plenty of people who did love it though (it was nominated for an Oscar!) so I was interested in reading the book to hopefully change my thoughts about the film.

I found the film extremely confusing with all of the different storylines not really fitting cohesively with the others. I thought maybe it was the editing, but now that I've read the book, I see that it was the style of the way the book was written.

The book itself was interesting when discussing the role of women in the Italian mafia, as well as how Hollywood has been influenced by the Italian mafia and then conversely how the mafia has been influenced by Hollywood. Those chapters kept me engaged and weren't a chore to get through.

However, the parts I didn't appreciate so much were the chapters where the author just told story after story of how different mobsters were killed. I felt like I was reading a police log from a newspaper! I didn't feel like I could connect to any of the characters in the story and I think it was because the author didn't allow for that connection to happen.

Did anyone else feel the same way? What were your other thoughts on the novel?