Tag: september

Jungle

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Sinclair, Upton. The Jungle. Robert Bentley Inc., 1946.

Reason read: Sinclair celebrated a birthday in September. Read in his honor. I also needed a book set in the Midwest for the Portland Public Library’s 2024 Reading Challenge.

In my version of The Jungle (Robert Bentley, Inc., 1946), Sinclair provides an introduction and in that introduction he describes how he came to Chicago at twenty-six years old and started visiting the meat packing district. The living and working conditions of the mostly immigrant workers prompted him to interview them at home, where conversations inevitably turn confessional. Sinclair even crashed a Lithuanian wedding and used the experience in the opening scene of The Jungle.
I will not lie. Reading The Jungle by Upton Sinclair was painful. Jurgis, with his haunting mantra, “I will work hard. I will work faster. I will work longer” was heartbreaking. The desperation for employment – children lying about their ages to get work, women giving out their bodies to find work and bringing bribes of their bodies to stay employed. Look up misery in the dictionary and you should find Sinclair’s The Jungle.
As an aside, pay attention to the words used in the socialist sermon. Monster. Exhaustion. Beaten. Starvation. Horror. Darkness. Obstacles. Threatening. Hostile. Destroy. Fury. Prison. Oppression. Grim. Toiling. Agony. Suffering. Difficulties. Trapped. Hideous. Pain. Wretched. Curse. Misery.
In the end, Jurgis fades into the background as the sermon on socialism, morality, the word of God, and the future of Chicago takes over.

Book trivia: Jack London endorsed The Jungle saying it will run away with you. He was right.

Quote to quote, “They trick you and then they eat you alive” (p 69).

Confessional: I would like to think everyone has read this best selling classic. However, until now I was not one of those people. I never had to read it in grade school, high school, college, or graduate school. It was not on any supplemental list supplied by my teachers.

Natalie connection: 10,000 Maniacs performs a song called “My Sister Rose” which depicts a family wedding. Natalie sings about “dollar dances with the bride” much like the dancing described in the early pages of The Jungle. Music can take you back to your homeland.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the chapter called “One Hundred Good Reads, Decade By Decade: 1900s” (p 175).

Ways of Dying

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Mda, Zakes. Ways of Dying. Picador Press, 1995.

Reason read: Ways of Dying was awarded the M-Net Book Award in September. Read in recognition of that event.

Told in the collective voice of “we,” Ways of Dying unfolds the story of Toloki and Noria. The community owns the story, but keeps an emotionally safe distance. Toloki makes his living as a professional mourner. What an interesting vocation. Toloki will be there if you need someone to help carry a casket; he will wail as if he just lost his own best friend, or he can rescue a body from the morgue before officials dump it into a mass grave. Toloki’s most important task is to attend funerals to comfort the mourners. It is at one such funeral that he reconnects with someone from his childhood. As children, Toloki was always jealous of the beautiful and mysterious Noria. No matter how hard he tried to please his father, Noria was the only one his father had eyes for. Noria acted as Toloki’s father’s artistic muse. Now, years later, Noria is a changed woman after suffering so much heartache and loss. Together, they forge a new friendship.
Confession: there was so much misery in Ways of Dying that I could not trust a happy ending.

Lines I liked, “That Mountain Woman had razor blades in her tongue” (p 30), “If you don’t praise yourself while you are alive, no one else will” (p 147), and “He is willing to find more ways of living” (p 192).

Author fact: Mda was a visiting professor at Yale at the the time of Ways of Dying‘s publication.

Book trivia: Ways of Dying won the M-Net Book Prize.

Setlist: “Silent Night”

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust To Go in the chapter called “South Africa” (p 215).

Africa House

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Lamb, Christina: The Africa House: the True Story of an English Gentleman and His African Dream. Harper Collins. 1994.

Reason read: Zambia’s third president Levy Mwanawasa’s birthday was celebrated in September. Gore-Browne was credited with enabling Zambia to seek independence.

Africa House encompasses an African story that unfolds over multiple decades, pulling back the curtain on the complex life of Stewart Gore-Browne. From 1914 to 1927, Gore-Browne embarked on the ambitious endeavor of constructing his fantasy estate, driven by his aspiration to assume the role of a country squire that had captivated his imagination since his teenage years. Despite his noble ambitions, his infatuation with his married aunt added a layer of peculiarity to his character, which, coupled with his British “stiff upper lip” and rigid personality, created an unconventional and enigmatic personality. While he manages to find a wife outside the family, even that coupling was shrouded in controversy. Lorna, a woman from Gore-Browne’s youth, was truly the one who got away. When he meets Lorna’s daughter, also named Lorna, Gore-Browne seizes the chance to have his “original” Lorna back. The two marry, despite differences in ages and life ambitions. Servants call Gore-Browne’s wife “Lorna the Second” behind her back.
When Gore-Browne finally builds his dream estate, the naming of his residence as Shiwa House, in honor of a nearby lake, served as a testament to his deep connection with the Zambian land and its surroundings. Delving into the societal norms of the early 1900s, the prevalent culture among South Africa’s white population involved the employment of servants for various tasks, from carrying luggage to providing physical comfort. This reliance on servants was further highlighted when Gore-Browne took them to London with the purpose of instructing them in the etiquette of setting a formal table, enunciating clearly the stark contrast between the African and European lifestyles. This was uncomfortable to read. The evident racial divide, serving as the basis for the subsequent political turmoil in Gore-Browne’s later years, underscores the societal complexities and disparities that colored his otherwise solitary existence.

Author fact: Christina Lamb also wrote The Sewing Circles of Herat which is also on my Challenge list. These are the only two Lamb books I am reading. As an aside, I would love to know more about why Lamb chose the subject of Gore-Browne.

Book trivia: Lamb used a wide array of sources to write The Africa House. She interviewed family members (mostly grandchildren) and former servants, had access to letters, journals and photographs, and scoured the literature for facts.

Setlist: “Rule Britannia”, Mozart’s Horn Concerto, Wagner, La Boehme, Chopin, “Sonata Pathetique”, “Nkosi Sikelel Iafrika”, Purcell’s “Trumpet Tune and Air”, Bach’s “Toccata and Fugue”, “God Bless Africa”, “Wedding March”, “The Lord is My Shepherd”, Verdi’s Requiem, Jose Iturbi’s “Poloniase in A Flat”, “Ave Maria”, “Sheep May Safely Graze”, and “Once in Royal David’s City”.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust To Go in the chapter called “Zambia” (p 266).

When Broken Glass Floats

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Him, Chanrithy. When Broken Glass Floats: Growing Up Under the Khmer Rouge. W.W. Norton and Company, 2000.

Reason read: I needed to pair a nonfiction book on history with a historical fiction on the same subject for the Portland Public Library 2023 Reading Challenge. Both When Broken Glass Floats (nonfiction) and For the Sake of All Living Things (fiction) are about the days of the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia. I am also reading When Broken Glass Floats in honor of the monarchy of Cambodia being restored in the month of September.

Many times, more times than I could count, I found myself trying to put myself in Him’s shoes. Having her brother waste away and die before her very eyes. The utter grief she experienced when her father left for “orientation” before she could say goodbye (not to mention his subsequent murder). Those are only some of the devastating events Him experienced during the rein of Pol Pot terror. Then came the never-ending slave labor and extreme starvation. One by one, her family withers and dies. How does one survive such constant suffering? Him is courageous and her will to survive is astounding.
Confessional: Despite the horrors Him relates in When Broken Glass Floats, there was a fascinating component of describing cultural superstitions. When Him’s brother is dying it was believed he urinated on someone’s grave and that is why, during the worst of his illness, he could not speak or relieve himself.

Author fact: Chanrithy is a human rights activist as well as an author.

Book trivia: one of the maps in When Broken Glass Floats is curious. Places are pinned as meals: supper, breakfast, dinner, dessert, snack, and lunch.

Playlist: Sinsee Samuth, Ros Sothea, and Leo Sayer’s “I Love You More Than I Can Say”.

Nancy said: Pearl called When Broken Glass Floats heartbreaking and unforgettable.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust To Go in the chapter simply called “Cambodia” (p 47).

For the Sake of All Living Things

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Del Vecchio, John M. For the Sake of All Living Things. Bantam Books, 1990.

Reason read: For the Portland Public Library Reading Challenge of 2023 I needed a book of historical fiction to pair with a nonfiction on the same subject. I am reading For the Sake of All Living Things with When Broken Glass Floats. Both books cover Cambodia and the Khmer Rouge. A second reason is Cambodia had its monarchy restored in the month of September 1993.

I don’t care how many years pass. The plight of Cambodia in the years following the Vietnam War is atrocious. For the Sake of All Living Things is a difficult read. It is powerful. Powerful like a 250 pound man of all muscle punching you in the gut. From scenes when the poorest of poor farmers have to pay tolls or “donations” just to travel a road to the vicious methods of torture and killing (chopsticks driven into the brain via the ears, bodies cleaved in two, children buried alive) I was wincing the entire time I read For the Sake of All Living Things. Through fear and violence the dominance of the Khmer Rouge spreads like a staining black oil throughout Cambodia, indoctrinating and training villagers to become killing machines for the Pol Pot regime. The methods of brainwashing are subtle and sly. As a historical fiction For the Sake of All Living Things reads like a nonfiction because of the appropriate terminology, government reports and various strategic maps. At times I was internally cringing to be American.
I read somewhere that For the Sake of All Living Things is actually the second book in a trilogy about the Vietnam war, Cambodia and the Pol Pot year zero cleansing, and veterans coming home.

Author fact: While Del Vecchio has written a few other works, this is the only one I am reading for the Book Lust Challenge. Confessional: I am kind of relieved.

Book trivia: this should have been a movie or a mini-series. Maybe it is a movie. I don’t know. Everyone has made comparisons to The Killing Fields, the 1984 film directed by Roland Joffe.

Nancy said: Pearl did not say anything specific about For the Sake of All Living Things.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust To Go in the simple chapter called “Cambodia” (p 47).

Barlowe’s Guide to Fantasy

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Barlowe, Wayne Douglas. Barlowe’s Guide to Fantasy: Great Heroes and Bizarre Beings from Imaginative Literature. Harper Prism, 1996.

Reason read: this was a very short read that satisfied two categories of the Portland Public Library Reading challenge for 2023. I needed a book under 150 pages and a book with a cryptid or mythological being as a character.

I think a more accurate title for this book would have been Barlowe’s Guide to Fifty Fantastic Heroes and Bizarre Beings in Fantasy. Too long? Okay, we can drop the “in fantasy” because it is kind of redundant. Seriously, I did not find this to be a guide to the genre of fantasy, but more of a who’s who of popular characters from authors such as Peter S. Beagle, Robert Jordan, Clive Barker, and Stephen Donaldson. The illustrations of insects, monsters, dragons, beasts, unicorns, and the whatnot are truly beautiful. From fashion to faces, each creature comes alive in Barlowe’s guide. I imagined Barlowe pouring over every descriptive element of each creature in order to get features, costumes, and weapons as accurate as possible. Even though the list of characters is short (there are only fifty), this must-read for fantasy readers of all ages.

Confessional: There is a book from my childhood that I like better. I still have it. It’s called Fantastic People: Magical Races of Myth and Legend by Allan Scott and Michael Scott Rohan. It includes chapters on dragons, trolls, vampires, witches, demons, and more.

Author fact: besides being an illustrator, Barlowe is an author.

Book trivia: Barlowe’s Guide to Fantasy was coauthored by Neil Duskis.

Seasons of Rome

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Hofmann, Paul. The Seasons of Rome. Illustrated by Joanne Morgante. Henry Holt and Company, 1997.

Reason read: Kisa and I are going to Rome in a few months.

Paul Hofmann decided to record daily life in Rome for one year. He wanted to remember how the city and its people lived through 1994 to 1995. Each chapter takes place in a different month, beginning in September. Why start in September? I have no idea. Hofmann writes about Rome with an air of authority that borders on possessiveness. It is obvious he loves his city.
Things I learned about Rome from thirty years ago. Holidays and Sunday closures made it nearly impossible to by medicine or milk, but the good news was that you would be able to find parking. And speaking of cars in 1994, 16,000 people were permitted to take their cars into the center, but only 12,000 were admitted. Sounds like a scam to me. Although, fifty years earlier (1945), Hofmann was allowed to park his Jeep at the Vatican, thanks to being a war correspondent with the New York Times (Rome was just liberated by the Allies six month prior).
I love it when assumptions are turned on their heads. Here is one of mine. When I think of religious figures, I think of monks living in monasteries or ministers in parsonages. I think humble. Very humble. So, it was strange to read about a pope needing a heliport or an Italian air force to warn him of inclement weather before flying. Then it dawned on me…Vatican City. Oh.
Thanks to Hofmann’s book, there are other elements of Rome I cannot wait to check out: is there some kind of memorial to Keats at No. 66 Piazza di Spagna? There was not at the time of Hofmann’s book. Where do I find a mechanical creche? Does the C line from the Colosseum to the Vatican exist yet?
This is a charming book, albeit, a little outdated.

As an aside, I can see Dermot writing a song and using the word sirocco. I have no idea why, but it is a very passionate word in my mind and it fits the way he writes. And speaking of Dermot, he revealed where in Rome she said “I wish we could stay”. You can bet the Kisa and I will be trying to visit that place.

Author fact: at the time of publication, Hofmann was chief of the New York Times bureau in Rome. He passed away in 2008.

Book trivia: The Seasons of Rome was illustrated by Joanne Morgante.

Playlist: Verdi’s “Aida”, “Requiem”, and “Rigoletto”, Maria Callas, Wagner, Herbert von Karajan, Danna Takova, Puccini, and Maria Jeritza.

Nancy said: Pearl called Seasons of Rome immensely interesting.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust To Go in the chapter called “Roman Holiday” (p 188).

How the Irish Saved Civilization

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Cahill, Thomas. How the Irish Saved Civilization: the Untold Story of Ireland’s Heroic Role from the Fall of Rome to the Rise of Medieval Europe. Nan A. Talese Doubleday, 1995.

Reason read: the Lisdoonvarna festival is in September. Supposedly, it is this big match-making festival. Sounds fun!

In the beginning of How the Irish Saved Civilization we examine the philosophies of Augustine, Plato, and Cicero. Augustine’s knowledge is considered the portal into the classical world. The most influential man in Irish history is Patrick, of course. He was the first to advocate for the end to slavery. He had a lifelong commitment to end violence and he was not afraid of his enemies. Irish Catholicism was sympathetic towards sinners, accepting of diversity and women in leadership roles, and considered sexual mores unimportant.
Cahill has a sense of humor. Early on he supposes Alaric was the King of the Fuzzy-Wuzzies. I don’t know what that means, but it made me smile. Cahill also includes a map of the Roman Empire in the 5th century to orientate his readers.
Spoiler alert: the answer to how the Irish saved civilization is that they brought their literacy and love of learning to the rest of the world. Probably one of the most fascinating parts of How the Irish Saved Civilization is how the Irish monks buried their beloved books and valuable metalworks to hide them from the Vikings. Cahill claims that even today farmers are known to unearth lost treasures.

The best line to like, “A world in chaos is not a world in which books are copied and libraries maintained” (p 35). Amen.

Author fact: Thomas Cahill’s author photograph looks like he should be reporting the six o’clock news. How the Irish Saved Civilization is the only book I am reading of his.

Book trivia: How the Irish Saved Civilization includes a very small section of black and white photographs. As an aside, one of my pet peeves is when an author describes a striking or favorite photograph and then does not, for whatever reason, include it in the book. Cahill actually shares the photographs that he describes.

Nancy said: Pearl called How the Irish Saved Civilization readable.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust To Go in the chapter called “Ireland: Beyond Joyce, Behan, Beckett, and Synge” (p 110).

People Person

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Williams, Sandy R. People Person: How to Talk to Anyone, Improve Social Awkwardness, and Communicate With Ease and Confidence. 2023.
Reason read: an Early Review pick from LibraryThing.

I decided I would not try to digest every piece of advice or tackle every suggestion Williams made in People Person. It was good enough to start small: smiling at everyone you meet, saying hello with enthusiasm and practice positive self-talk. I don’t know what constitutes a power playlist or how to surround myself with confident people (they are who they are). One of the best reasons to read a self help book is to discover other self help books that might fit you better. In reading People Person I discovered Ty Tashiro.
Warning – the consequences of not being a people person sounds like the warning label on a prescription bottle: if you are anxious, side effects include misunderstandings and missed opportunities; loneliness and depression.
Confessional: I am wary of any book that uses the word transformation. Another disappointment was a plug for reviews at the end of chapter four. Williams could have at least waited until the end of the book for such a self-serving plug.
All in all, I enjoyed People Person. This is the first self help book I have read in a long that I consider more helpful than not.

Ancient Shore

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Hazzard, Shirley and Francis Steegmuller. The Ancient Shore: Dispatches from Naples. University of Chicago Press, 2008.

Reason read: We are planning a trip to Italy in at the end of the year. At the time I put this on my list I didn’t know if we would make it to Naples or not. It turns out, we will not be going to Naples this time. Something for the next trip!

Hazzard begins Ancient Shore with an abbreviated autobiography of her childhood and how she discovered Italy. From there, different essays connect Naples to its culture, politics, history, and endless charm. Hazzard remembers Naples of the 1950s so there is a nostalgic air to her writing. Because Ancient Shore is a little dated, I wondered if some of the details are still accurate. I guess I will have to travel there to find out!
Hazzard’s husband, Francis Steegmuller, steps in for a story about a violent mugging he experienced. His tale is terrible. Terrible because he was warned many times over not to carry his bag a certain way. Terrible because the violence caused great ever-lasting injury. Terrible, above all, because he knew better. This was not his first time in Naples.

Lines worth remembering, “There can be the journey to reconciliation, the need to visit the past of to exorcise it” (p 17), “Like luck itself, Italy cannot be explained” (p 125), and my personal favorite, “We are encouraged to stop defining life, and to live it” (p 126).

Author(s) fact(s): I am reading four of Hazzard’s books. Ancient Shore is the second on the list. Steegmuller was a man of many hats. He died in 1994.

Book trivia: Ancient Shore is a very short book, but please take your time reading it. The photographs are wonderful, too.

Playlist: Diana Ross.

Nancy said: Pearl called Ancient Shore a lovely little book.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust To Go in the chapter simply called “Naples” (p 146).

Less Than

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Long, A.D. Less Than. Zada Press, 2023.

Reason read: as a member of the Early Review program I occasionally review books for LibraryThing. I have to admit, it was refreshing to receive a work of fiction this time around.

When we first meet Evann, he is in the middle of a drug-induced crisis. Memories and flashbacks help explain how he got to this place of desperation. Most of the book is one flashback after another, mostly surrounding the verbal and sometime physical abuse of his mother, a self-centered woman who never wanted him as her first born. Evann’s present life is all about excessive drug use and maintaining an image of normalcy for his oblivious family. It isn’t hard to do. His parents barely notice his existence and his sister, Nicole, is too caught up in being the golden child. Evann is so lost in the sauce he doesn’t have a present-day personality to speak of. His childhood self is innocent, charming, introverted. As a budding artist he shows all the signs of becoming extremely talented. Of course, no one takes this talent seriously. Certainly not, compared to Nicole’s talent as a ballerina.
Towards the end of Less Than, as a means of explanation maybe, Bruce and Ann, Evann’s parents get chapters to justify their lack of love for Evann. Even Nicole tells her story. Their secrets are a little overdramatic and exaggerated, but they prove a point: all families have ghosts; ghosts that could push a good kid into drug addiction. Because of Evann’s lack of adult personality, I wasn’t as vested in his outcome as I should have been.

Author fact: Long has her own website here.

Book trivia: Less Than is Long’s debut novel.

Playlist: Willie Nelson and “Stairway to Heaven” by Led Zeppelin.

Over 80

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Reynolds, Marilyn. Over 80: Reflections on Aging. New Winds Publishing, 2022.

Reason read: I am a member of the Early Review Program for LibraryThing. This is a selection for the month of September.

There are a myriad of reasons why I want to hang out with Marilyn Reynolds. First and foremost, she is funny AF. Secondly, she boycotts In-N-Out Burger because they donate to the Republican party. Thirdly, she is a realist. If you want proof, just read her chapter on her perspective of firsts and lasts (first couch she bought with a husband, last sex she’ll ever have…). And. And! And, if that wasn’t enough, she swears like a sailor. I laughed out loud when she considered taking up vaping.
I can only imagine that Over 80 is a lot like Over 70 in that it features essays about getting older and I have to wonder if that is true, could you string them together to make a disjointed autobiography of sorts? Reynolds is a realist I can appreciate. She became a writer (and a funny one at that) when she discovered there weren’t enough “real” books for students. She wanted to satisfy a need to see honest and relatable situations for the students in her classroom. It reminds me of my father saying “if you don’t like the way something is done, do it yourself!” My only complaint, if I were to dredge one up, is that Over 80 ends abruptly. Because I was reading the e-version I didn’t have a sense of when the story was coming to a close.

Marilyn’s playlist: “Sweet Leilani”, “Three Little Fishes”, “Jeepers Creepers”, “Jingle Bells”, “Happy Birthday, “Hokey Pokey”, Aloha Oe”, “Ode to Joy”, “The Little White Duck”, “Brother Can You Spare a Dime?”, “Mad Dogs and Englishmen”, “I’ll Fly Away”, “There is a Fountain Filled with Blood”, “Roll Me Over in the Clover”, “Spirit of Life”, “So Long It’s Been Good to Know You”, Bing Crosby’s “Blue Hawaii”, Burl Ives, Beethoven, Chopin, Arthur Rubenstein, Harry Owens, and Hilo Hattie.

Kindred

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Butler, Octavia, E. Kindred. Read by Kim Staunton. Audio Books, 2007.

Reason read: The audio book for Kindred was released on September 12th, 2007. Read in honor of that event. I also needed a book with a one word title for the Portland Public Library Reading Challenge.

This was a hard read. I know what Butler was trying to do and it worked almost too well. Even just reading the fact that nigger was not a derogatory term in southern Maryland in 1815 was painful. I didn’t know how I would get through the much, much, much harsher treatment of slaves, but I did. Dana, a modern woman from the 1970s, finds herself time-traveling back to pre-Civil War Maryland. At first it seems as if Dana is going back in time to protect the future of her very existence. It’s much deeper than that. There were many themes introduced in Kindred. Probably the most profound theme surrounded literacy. The ability to read was controversial in the mid 1800s. Seen as a threat to whites, cherished as a secret communication for slaves, the ability to read symbolized power and a different form of freedom. Confessional: after Dana’s first jump I was disturbed by her early acceptance of time travel. She wasn’t as freaked out about time jumping between present day Los Angeles and slave era Maryland as I thought realistic. Add in the fact she accidentally took her white husband with her and a whole other dynamic gets introduced. Another confessional: I read this so fast I can barely remember the details except to say the violence stayed with me for a very long time, even if the entire plot didn’t.

Author fact: Butler passed away in 2006.

Book trivia: I could picture this being a movie.

Nancy said: Pearl only includes Kindred in a list of books about time travel one might enjoy.

BookLust Twist: from More Book Lust in the chapter called “Time Travel” (p 221).

Woman Warrior

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Kingston, Maxine Hong. Woman Warrior: Memoirs of a Girlhood Among Ghosts. Everyman’s Library, 1976.

Reason read: California became a state in September. Woman Warrior was also published in September.

Kingston is a master at weaving first, second, and third voices into a memoir filled with anicient Chinese folklore and cautionary tales about womanhood. I felt a lot of sadness in Woman Warrior. The tragedy starts early in as Kingston describes her mother, a former Chinese doctor, telling a horrifying tale about an aunt giving birth to a sexless child in a pigsty and then committing suicide with that baby; drowning together in a well. There was such shame in this pregnancy, “To save her inseminator’s name she gave a silent birth” (p 14). So much contradiction in culture! There is a crime to being born female and yet there is the story of the fierce woman warrior, the legend of the female avenger. My favorite parts were when Kingston addresses the difference between American-feminine and Chinese-feminine.

Quotes to quote, “No one supports me at the expense of his own adventure” (p 50),

Author fact: I could have read this book in honor of Kingston being born in October.

Book trivia: Woman Warrior won the National Book Critics Circle Award for General Nonfiction.

Nancy said: Pearl did not say anything about Woman Warrior except to say that it was published before The Joy Luck Club but didn’t captivate the world like Tan did.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the chapter called “Asian American Experience (p 26).

Bone

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Ng, Fae Myenne. Bone. Harper Perennial, 1993.

Reason read: September is the month for the Autumn Festival for China.

Here’s what you need to understand first and foremost. This is a story built around grief. Ona, the middle sister, jumped off the M floor of the Nam. M happens to be the thirteenth floor. Unlucky, unforgivable thirteen. Everything that happens to her surviving family centers on this one fact. Ona jumped. Everything is marked by the time Before Ona Jumped and the time After Ona Jumped. Confessional: I am like that, too. When I hear a specific date, I quickly do the math to determine if it is A.D.D. (after dad’s death) or before – B.D.D. Leila is the eldest of three daughters and the one most constrained by old China values versus modern American China. She is aware of the boldness of her actions (eloping when her ancestors had childbride arranged marriages), but she isn’t the boldest of the family. All three sisters are responsible for Mah’s shame. Her sister Ona committed suicide (shame) and her sister, Nina, had an abortion (shame). Even Mah carries shame (an affair while her second husband was away at sea as a merchant marine). Told from the perspective of Lei, she has to make a decision between dating and duty; between marriage with Mason and Mah. Having both seems impossible.

Lines I really liked: sorry. Can’t quote them.

Author fact: Ng has been compared to F. Scott Fitzgerald.

Book trivia: As an aside, my internet copy of Bone was marked up. Every highlighted area made me think I needed to pay close attention to that specific passage.

Nancy said: nothing specific.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in two different chapters. Once in “Asian American Experience” (p 26). The second time in “California, Here We Come” (p 50).