What You Are Looking For Is in the LIbrary

 

What You Are Looking For Is in the Library by Michiko Aoyama
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Five people all feel stuck in different ways and find themselves going to the community library where a felting librarian points them to books they request, and then one more that seems to have nothing to do with their problems, but which holds all the answers. The thing I enjoyed is that it points out that we can get insights out of all sorts of books--children's books, how-to books, non-ficton, fiction. It's up to us to make the connections, but if we allow quiet moments of contemplation, we can garner wisdom in all sorts of literature. The insights the patrons find are all of the find good in the now, be brave, and all ends are beginnings sort of vein. Nothing earth-shattering, but still all good reminders.

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In Pieces

 

In Pieces by Sally Field
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Perhaps as much of an exploration as a memoir, Field recalls her childhood and her early acting days. At one point she asks "Why is it easier for me to write about the times in my life that felt humiliating or shameful?...Do I hold on to those dark times as a badge of honor, or are they my identity?" And indeed, this is a much darker book than what I'd expected from Gidget. I had never followed Sally Field as a fan, but do enjoy her acting and was surprised to find that she had been through so much. She does have a lot of painful, raw experiences in here--and this book feels like a way for her to maybe make sense of them, figure out what part she had to play in them, and what responsibility she should shoulder as opposed to her mother (and others). She also shares how acting was also a passion, ambition, and escape. Her desire to be better is admirable. Although we get a lot of details about her early life, she races through most of her time as a bona fide star, the focus being her relationship with her mother and the resolution she was able to come to at the end of her mother's life. More interesting and insightful than simply a tell-all, this a beautiful odyssey of self-discovery.

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Jade War

Jade War by Fonda Lee
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

The Green Bone Saga expands in this book as outside countries become more interested in jade and the clans use this to gain power and money and influence at home. The immigrant lifestyle is explored: how do you carry on traditions and cultural values in a new land, especially when a fundamental part of that culture is illegal? There are still plenty of high stakes clashes and duels, scheming and clever plots, and memorable personalities. It didn't pack quite as much of an emotional punch for me as the first, but it was still a thrilling, exciting plot-driven book.

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It's not your forgiveness we need.  Just your understanding.

Jade City

Jade City by Fonda Lee
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

One of the best plot-driven novels I've read. The world-building is familiar enough that it doesn't take long to settle in with the No Peak Clan of Janaloon. The characters and drama are memorably drawn so that you can picture the schemes, loves, and fights of the clan. The pace moves quick enough that there is plenty to be engaged with but the characterization is done well enough that you care about the outcome. Exciting and engaging!

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This Is the Story of a Happy Marriage

 

This Is the Story of a Happy Marriage by Ann Patchett
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This is a fine, but underwhelming collection of essays that were previously published (for the most part) in various magazines Patchett wrote for. There a few stand-outs, but once again I feel like Patchett's strength lies in fiction. It's her personality more than the writing that doesn't jive with me, so it may just be a personal problem with me.

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Most of us are full up with bad stories, boring stories, self-indulgent stories, searing works of unendurable melodrama.  We must get all of them out of our system in order to find the good stories that may or may not exist in the fresh water underneath.

Forgiveness, therefore, is key.  I can't write the book I want to write, but I can and will write the book I am capable of writing.  again and again throughtout the course of my life I will forgive myself. 

the more we are willing to separate from distraction and step into the open arms of boredom, the  more writing will get on the page.

My mother used to say the more lost you are, the later it got, the more you had investedin not being lost.  That's why people who are lost so often keep heading in the same direction.

The Golden State

 

The Golden State by Lydia Kiesling
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Essentially ten days in the life of a young mother as she grapples with grief and loss, the deaths of some students she mentored becoming a catalyst for her to realize her life has become overwhelming. She spontaneously decamps to a house in a small northern California town that her mother has left her, and she tries to figure out her next steps. It's told in stream of consciousness that becomes unique if only because it illustrates the relentlessness of being a parent to a small child. Despite what else is going on, the child must be fed, changed, entertained, etc. She isn't an exemplary parent, which makes it all the more relatable. As she reaches out for connection in the small town she realizes her own strengths and priorities and gives her the motivation to move forward. I personally loved the peek inside the mind of this young mother, the characterization of her and the small town felt spot-on and honest.

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observation is violence, anyway, as any Orientalist knows

"You're never safte from bad things happening..."

"you suffering won't ease anyone else's suffering."

Your Duck is Not My Duck

Your Duck Is My Duck: Stories by Deborah Eisenberg
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

There is an art to the short story and I am not sure I fully appreciate it. Instead of a short novel, the short story seems to glory in vagueness and abrupt endings. I'm sure there is an art to reading them and a key to understanding, but it seems to elude me lately. So while I did enjoy some of the stories in this collection, there were others that I thought were frustratingly obtuse. I did enjoy her observations on language and especially the thoughts in "Merge" about the first words humans spoke and how our communication, the written word especially has allowed us to become who we are. And "The Third Tower" about how who we are develops from how we associate different and unique thoughts from the names of things. In fact, those stories hold enough ideas in them that I might give this collection another go after I've given it some time to marinate.

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to observe the moment when, at the heart of the conflagration, the trees that sustained it became phantoms, the fire's memory.

"Can you believe that all that turned out to be then? At the time I somehow thought that it was now.  Did it occur to you that it was going to be then?

The tool that doesn't work, Ernst called language.

Maybe these pictures are memories that somehow became detached from other people and stray through the universe, slipping through rips in the fabric and clinging to whatever living beings they can, faulty beings like her.