Tag Archives: Christian Science Monitor
The Happiness Project: Or, Why I Spent a Year Trying to Sing in the Morning, Clean My Closets, Fight Right, Read Aristotle, and Generally Have More Fun by Gretchen Rubin
Before I even finished the book, I had already preordered multiple copies of Gretchen Rubin’s latest title, The Happiness Project: Or, Why I Spent a Year Trying to Sing in the Morning, Clean My Closets, Fight Right, Read Aristotle, and Generally Have More Fun. Which means if you’re looking for an enlightening, laugh-aloud read, get the book and forget the rest of this review. If you need more convincing, let me count the monthly ways….
Gretchen Rubin already had a pretty good life. She’s married to the man of her dreams, has two “delightful” daughters, is a bestselling author with a Yale law degree, is healthy, and lives in her favorite city surrounded by supportive family and friends. But she’s also prone to misbehavior that undermines her well-being: she loses her temper over trivial things, and fights melancholy and insecurity, not to mention that unshakable guilt.
One morning on a city bus, Rubin had a startling epiphany: “I was suffering from midlife malaise – a recurrent sense of discontent and almost a feeling of disbelief … ‘Is this really it?’” Asking herself what she really wanted, her answer seemed simple: “I want to be happy.” Like most of us, she “had never thought about what made [her] happy or how [she] might be happier.” But unlike most of us, she actually figured out how: “I decided to dedicate a year to trying to be happier.” And she gives the rest of us great hope because she did so without making radical changes like running off to Indonesia. Rubin assures us, “I wanted to change my life without changing my life, by finding more happiness in my own kitchen.”
First she planned and prepared. She compiled her own “Twelve Commandments,” which begins with the all-important “Be Gretchen,” and her “goofier list” of “Secrets of Adulthood,” which includes tried-and-tested gems like, “By doing a little bit each day, you can get a lot accomplished,” and Luddite-loving zingers like, “Turning the computer on and off a few times often fixes glitches.”
Armed and ready, Rubin set off on her year-long journey. Superbly organized into amusing step-by-step months, Happiness Project is a definite success – just reading it will make you happier. Rubin manages to offer plausible, solid suggestions for what worked for her; she’s great at navigating that delicate line between “just do this,” and “you might want to try that.” As self-help books go, Rubin’s works because it’s filled with open, honest glimpses into her real life, woven together with constant doses of humor. She begins the year boosting her energy to be better prepared for the next 11 months: In January, she sleeps more, exercises better, and cleans out her closets. February is spent working on her marriage: She vows to nag less, fight right, and “not to eat a half pound of M&Ms on an empty stomach.” …[click here for more]
Review: Christian Science Monitor, January 7, 2010
Readers: Adult
Published: 2009 Continue reading
Filed under ..Adult Readers, .Memoir, .Nonfiction, Nonethnic-specific
Not Quite Paradise: An American Sojourn in Sri Lanka by Adele Barker
Three weeks after 9/11, University of Arizona professor Adele Barker arrived in Sri Lanka as a senior Fulbright Scholar to teach Russian literature, feminist literary theory, and American literature to select students at the University of Peradeniya. But her own education about the history and people of the island nation takes center page in her latest title, Not Quite Paradise: An American Sojourn in Sri Lanka.
With centuries’ worth of visitors – “[s]ome were blown off course; some came for the spices; some to conquer and rule; some, much later, simply to sunbathe” – much of Sri Lanka’s history can be summarized in its names given by foreigners: the Roman Taprobane, the Arab Serendib, the Portuguese Ceilao, the Dutch Ceylan, the British Ceylon, and finally “[i]n 1972, the people who actually live on this island reclaimed the name Sri Lanka.”
Settling into a sprawling home in Kandy with her teenage son, Barker initially insists, “I didn’t want people who are darker than me fixing our meals and cleaning for us.” With her landlord’s gentle prodding, however, she realizes that not employing the locals is more damaging to the tenuous economy than upholding her anticolonialist principles. With its Sinhalese owners, Tamil caretaker, and ever-changing international visitors, Barker’s guesthouse compound is an oasis amid the “civil war between the Sinhalese majority and the Tamil Tiger rebels … [that] had already been raging since 1983” and claimed 40,000 lives by 2001. But beyond the walls are daily reminders of war, from grenades to riots to murders. Sri Lanka, Barker learns, is a land of paradox: the endless violence “against the backdrop of something whose beauty is heart-stopping.”
In spite of perpetual conflict, Barker observes that she has never lived “with such a hybrid mix” of Sinhalese, Tamils, Burghers of Dutch and Portuguese ancestry, Moors, and Malays. Surprisingly, religion – Sri Lanka is majority Buddhist – “has never been a factor in this war.”
Barker’s academic year passes quickly and she leaves with gihin ennam, a Sinhalese parting used “‘when you are saying good-bye but know you’ll be back.’” While her first trip was marked by 9/11, her second, three years later in October 2005, follows the devastating Dec. 26, 2004, tsunami that claimed 30,000 Sri Lankan lives: “I needed to see things for myself.” As she travels through refugee camps, Barker witnesses the disturbing results of “competitive charity,” a term coined by a foreign aid worker, referring to international organizations with too much funding, working without enough understanding of local needs. While Barker’s first trip focused on the experiences of the southern Sri Lankans, Barker is determined to “find the balance” in the Tamil north, home of the Tamil Tigers, a group labeled by the United States as a terrorist organization. “Suicide missions are part of the ethos of this organization,” Barker learns, and near-daily violence is simply unavoidable. Resigned survival is the only goal. … [click here for more]
Review: Christian Science Monitor, December 30, 2009
Readers: Adult
Published: 2009 Continue reading
Filed under ..Adult Readers, .Memoir, .Nonfiction, Nonethnic-specific, Sri Lankan
Egg on Mao: The Story of an Ordinary Man Who Defaced an Icon and Unmasked a Dictatorship by Denise Chong
Denise Chong has built an award-winning career capturing ordinary people living extraordinary lives. The Concubine’s Children (1994) told of her own family’s fractured journey from China to Canada and The Girl in the Picture (2000) detailed the harrowing story of the young girl whose screaming, naked image became a devastating symbol of the Vietnam War.
In her latest book, Egg on Mao: The Story of an Ordinary Man Who Defaced an Icon and Unmasked a Dictatorship, Chong bears witness to the life of a Chinese bus mechanic who risked everything in an effort to change his country’s repressive regime.
On June 4, 2009, three friends – Lu Decheng, Yu Zhijian, and Yu Dongyue – were reunited in Washington, DC, to mark the 20th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre. All three had spent the majority of the past two decades in scattered prisons, united by a single pledge to each another: “I must leave this prison alive and with my sanity.” Those of us fortunate enough to live in a free country can hardly comprehend that throwing paint-filled eggs on a poster could result in endless years of subhuman imprisonment.
Part biography, part history, part testimony, Egg on Mao closely follows the story of Lu Decheng, one of the three reunited friends. Chong weaves together several narrative strands: Lu’s early life in his riverside village in Hunan Province (modestly famous as the birthplace of fireworks); his fateful act of political protest during a pivotal moment in modern history that traps him in the Chinese prison system; and his subsequent survival and release, with his humanity somehow intact.
Growing up under a crushing Communist system that remained unchallenged even after Mao’s 1976 death, Lu was mostly raised by his beloved grandmother. Officially classified as a “martyr’s widow,” which accorded her certain privileges under the fickle regime, Grandmother Lu repeatedly emphasized the need for people to maintain the ability to “think for themselves.” Her dangerous but truthful talk of high-ranking thievery, deceit, and execution shaped Lu’s defiant views. …[click here for more]
Review: Christian Science Monitor, October 21, 2009
Readers: Adult
Published: 2009 Continue reading
The Piano Teacher by Janice Y.K. Lee
Something about Janice Y.K. Lee’s debut novel, The Piano Teacher, whispers, “Watch me.”
Populated with a cast of “wandering global voyagers,” Lee unfurls her story, set in Hong Kong during and after World War II, layer by layer and in cinematic snippets. Captured in clipped, almost abbreviated language, The Piano Teacher paints vivid pictures in quick strokes.
Lee, who is of Korean heritage, was born and raised in Hong Kong and educated at Harvard. She writes with a director’s eye. Her timing is ingenious and controlled, and she knows exactly how much she’s willing to reveal from one moment to the next.
The eponymous piano teacher is Claire Pendleton, a newly arrived émigré and the provincial young wife of a British government engineer whom she married “to escape the dark interior of her house, her bitter mother.” She arrives in 1952 Hong Kong with myriad preconceived notions about the “unscrupulous, conniving” locals. But the city is nothing as she expected and she finds herself especially wide-eyed over the affluent Chinese, “the ones who seemed English in all but their skin color…. She hadn’t known that such worlds existed.” …[click here for more]
Reviews: Christian Science Monitor, January 31, 2009
Readers: Adult
Published: 2009 Continue reading
Filed under ..Adult Readers, British, Chinese, Hapa, Korean American
Once They Hear My Name: Korean Adoptees and Their Journeys Toward Identity edited by Ellen Lee, Marilyn Lammert, and Mary Anne Hess
“When I got to college I said I was adopted, right off the bat,” says Todd Knowlton, a 33-year-old Korean-American adoptee. “It doesn’t bother me, but once they hear my last name, people always ask uncomfortable questions.”
The new collection, Once They Hear My Name: Korean Adoptees and Their Journeys Toward Identity edited by Ellen Lee, Marilyn Lammert, and Mary Anne Hess, echoes Knowlton’s sense of the disconnect shared by many transracial adoptees.
In the 1950s, long before Angelina Jolie and Madonna put transracial adoption in the headlines, Korean children were already arriving on US shores to join predominantly Caucasian families. According to various estimates, some 100,000 to 120,000 Korean adoptees reside in the United States alone, with a 50-plus-year history of becoming Americans. …[click here for more]
Review: Christian Science Monitor, September 30, 2008
Reader: Young Adult, Adult
Published: 2008 Continue reading
Filed under ..Adult Readers, ..Young Adult Readers, .Memoir, .Nonfiction, Korean American
Bombay Anna: The Real Story and Remarkable Adventures of the ‘King and I’ Governess by Susan Morgan
Immortalized by Deborah Kerr, Anna Leonowens – yes, that Anna, the one who taught the children of the King of Siam – was, without a doubt, a remarkable character. Unfortunately, her story remains buried in Susan Morgan’s overwritten Bombay Anna: The Real Story and Remarkable Adventures of the ‘King and I’ Governess.
Previous biographies have presented Leonowens as a genteel, upper-class British woman who faced tragic loss before she became the beloved governess to the children of the King of Siam. Leonowens herself held fast to those claims throughout her life.
But Anna’s “factual origins,” Morgan explains, were hardly genteel or even very British. She was born Anna Harriett Emma Edwards on November 26, 1831, in Ahmednuggar, India, to a British soldier and his teenaged Anglo-Indian orphan wife. Leonowens grew up in Army barracks amid a multicultural mix of many races and languages. … [click here for more]
Review: Christian Science Monitor, September 16, 2008
Readers: Adult
Published: 2008 Continue reading
Filed under ...And Awful Duds, ..Adult Readers, .Biography, .Nonfiction, British, Hapa, Indian, South Asian, Thai
Marrying Anita: A Quest for Love in the New India by Anita Jain
At 32, Anita Jain is an object of pity. Never mind her Harvard degree and a journalism career with its expat adventures in far-flung destinations such as London, Mexico City, and Singapore. Ask any auntie or uncle, and they will most assuredly shake their heads at “Naresh’s daughter who is still unmarried.”
Naresh – said father of the pitiable girl – has regularly been placing matrimonial ads on his daughter’s behalf since her 20s: “They read something like, ‘Match for Jain girl, Harvard-educated journalist, 25, fair, slim.’” (Jain is both the family’s religion and last name.)
Her mother, meanwhile, has been worried since her daughter fell out the window of a three-story building at age 1: “My mother’s greatest concern at the time, after learning that I hadn’t been gravely injured, was my marriageability. ‘What boy will marry her when he finds out?’”
So what’s an accomplished woman to do under such pressure? In Jain’s case, she relocates to the land of her immigrant parents to search for that elusive mate. And, in contemporary full-disclosure fashion, she writes a rollicking memoir: Marrying Anita: A Quest for Love in the New India. …[click for more]
Review: Christian Science Monitor, August 4, 2008
Readers: Adult
Published: 2008 Continue reading
Filed under ..Adult Readers, .Memoir, .Nonfiction, Indian American, South Asian American
The Ginseng Hunter by Jeff Talarigo
Jeff Talarigo can take some of the most horrific experiences a human being might face and somehow craft breathtakingly beautiful, haunting works of fiction. His luminous 2004 debut, The Pearl Diver, about the forced confinement of tuberculosis victims in mid-20th century Japan, was unforgettable. His latest, The Ginseng Hunter, chronicles a year in the life of a middle-aged Chinese man who lives alone on his family farm, located along the Tumen River which marks the border between rural China and devastated North Korea. His quiet, isolated life is interrupted by the desperate survivors who risk all to escape the deprivation and terror of their North Korean homeland. While too many others have chosen betrayal in order to survive, the farmer chooses to take grave risks in order to save even the so-called enemy – and hold onto his own humanity. …[click here for more]
Review: Christian Science Monitor, April 29, 2008
Tidbit: My original review of The Ginseng Hunter (linked above) ran in Christian Science Monitor, then got picked up over the next day in some 20-plus other publications around the country and even the world! My few minutes of fame, that’s for sure!
Readers: Adult
Published: 2008 Continue reading
Filed under ...Absolute Favorites, .Fiction, Korean, North Korean
The Fortune Cookie Chronicles: Adventures in the World of Chinese Food by Jennifer 8. Lee
Luddite me made a surprisingly funny joke to two techies after reading Jennifer 8. Lee‘s delightful The Fortune Cookie Chronicles: Adventures in the World of Chinese Food. “McDonald’s is to Microsoft as Chinese restaurants are to Linux,” I chirped confidently. My friends at first couldn’t believe what had just come out of my mouth – technology and I do not get along – and then they couldn’t stop laughing.
For those of you still scratching your head, here’s Lee’s more thorough explanation: “If McDonald’s is the Windows of the dining world (where one company controls the standards), then Chinese restaurants are akin to the Linux operating system, where a decentralized network of programmers contributes to the underlying source code. The code is available for anyone to use, modify, or redistribute freely.”
Indeed, in Chinese restaurants across the United States and beyond, regardless of size, location, or ownership, you can count on recognizing the same reliable fare: fried rice, chow mein, General Tso’s chicken, and, of course, a fortune cookie at meal’s end.
Is this why there are more Chinese restaurants in the US than all the McDonald’s, Burger Kings, and Kentucky Fried Chickens combined? Is there a real-life General Tso and why did his chicken cross the ocean? And just where did that crispy little cookie really come from? …[click here for more]
Review: Christian Science Monitor, March 18, 2008
Readers: Young Adult, Adult
Published: 2008 Continue reading
A Free Life by Ha Jin
If literary awards are any measure of prowess, then native Chinese speaker Ha Jin has most certainly mastered the English language. As a writer of poems, short stories, and fiction, he has been showered with major prizes, most notably the 1996 PEN/Hemingway for Ocean of Words, the 1999 National Book Award and the 2000 PEN/Faulkner for Waiting, and the PEN/Faulkner again in 2005 for War Trash.
In his latest novel, A Free Life, Jin makes his official literary transition from China to Chinese America (this is the first of his works set in the United States) with the same seemingly effortless grace with which he has produced his previous titles.
In basic terms, the plot of A Free Life is the familiar story of the gradual assimilation of an immigrant family into U.S. life. Nan Wu arrives solo in Boston as a PhD candidate in political science in 1985. His wife, Pingping, joins him a year and a half later. They are reunited with their young son, Taotao in 1990, after having watched the Tiananmen Square massacre from afar and deciding that life in the U.S. is the safer option for their small family. …[click here for more]
Review: Christian Science Monitor, December 11, 2007
Readers: Adult
Published: 2007 Continue reading
Filed under ..Adult Readers, .Fiction, Chinese, Chinese American
Facebook
Twitter
Subscribe to RSS
