Tag: september

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).

Purple Hibiscus

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Adichie, Chimamanda Ngozi. Purple Hibiscus. Anchor Books, 2003.

Reason read: September is Adichie’s birth month. Read in her honor. Additionally, for the Portland Public Library Reading Challenge I needed a book by a Nigerian author.

This is another one of those books for young people where the subject matter is so frank and at times, very brutal.
One teenage girl’s recollections of a violent childhood with a father so religious he beats impropriety out of his wife and children on a regular basis. Papa Eugene’s religious zeal steals a relationship with his own father; refusing to let him see the family for any length of time because Papa-Nnukwu worships differently than Catholic. In Eugene’s eyes, anything other than Catholic is equal to pagan. Even though Kambili lives in fear of her father, she is starved for his approval and affection. Rules: English as a language is civilized, Igbo is not. Coming in second in school is not allowed. Sports are not allowed. Shorts are not allowed. Makeup is not allowed. Consorting with the devil is not allowed, even if that “devil” is your own grandfather. As children, Kambili and her brother Jaja got to pick the weapon Papa would use to violently beat them. Even Kambili and Jaja’s mother is not immune to monstrous beatings. Somehow, despite this strictness, Kambili and Jaja are allowed to spend a week with Papa’s sister, Aunty Ifeoma. It’s their first time away from home and their last time experiencing life as they knew it.
Confessional: I wanted to read this book cover to cover in one sitting. I was riveted to the drama.

Lines I liked, “I was stained by failure” (p 39), “We did not scale the rod because we believed we could, we scaled it because we were terrified that we couldn’t” (p 226).

Author fact: Adichie has been compared to Gabriel Garcia Maquez. She is a Commonwealth Writers Prize winner and also wrote Half of a Yellow Sun and The Thing Around Your Neck. Both books are on my Challenge list.

Book trivia: the title of the book comes from the beautiful purple hibiscus flowers aunty grows in her garden. They are a symbol of defiant freedom from religious oppression.

Playlist: “Ave Maria”, “O Come All Ye Faithful”, Fela, Osadebe, and Onyeka.

Nancy said: Pearl said that “Kambili is a character who will remain with you long after the last page of this beautiful and heartrending novel is turned” (p 157 Book Lust To Go).

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust To Go in the simple chapter called “Nigeria” (p 156).

Stringer

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Just, Ward. Stringer. Graywolf Press, 1984.

Reason read: Just celebrates a birthday in September. Read in his honor.

Stringer is a Civilian Intelligence Agent sent on a mission to Vietnam to destroy an enemy supply convoy. He has a sly sense of humor. When paired with a Captain named Price, Stringer must practice patience. Price is younger, more impulsive, yet in charge. There is no casual conversation between the two men. Neither has confidence in the other. They are on the same team but distrust keeps them miles apart. To keep himself from thinking too much about Price, Stringer recalls his failures: his marriage, their visit to a classmate in a mental institution, Stringer’s short time as a newspaper man. These recollections keep him on task in the present. Ever present is Just’s commentary on the damage of war.
As an aside, the double murder came as a shock and I don’t know why. I should have seen it coming. As an aside, is the trick to aiming and firing a gun to breathe out and pull the trigger when the lungs are at their emptiest and the heart has slowed? I seem to have read this before. Maybe Lee Child had Reacher fire a gun this way?

Quote to quote, “That was the wonderful thing about hindsight, it was morbid, no optimism in hingsight” (p 6), “Eyes and Brains were not equal to the circumstances, they were too selective” (p 118)

Author fact: Ward Just’s middle name is Swift. What an interesting name.

Book trivia: Despite being a slim volume, Just packs in a great deal of action, emotion, and character.

Nancy said: besides saying Ward Just is too good to miss, she mentions Stringer as another book by him.

Playlist: Brunis, Zutty, George Mitchell, Alcide Pavageau, Fitzhugh, Kid Ory, Sassoon, and the Oliver Band.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the chapter called “Ward Just: Too Good To Miss” (p 135).

Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance

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Pirsig, Robert M. Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry into Values. New York: William Morrow & Company, 1974.

Reason read: Pirsig’s birth month is in the month of September.

When you are traveling across the country on a motorcycle, you have more than enough time to analyze the world around you in ways you wouldn’t if you chose to passively ride in a car or fly by plane. Pirsig takes his love of motorcycle maintenance and equates it to examining the way we live. If you excuse the didactic moments that seem holier than thou, he even shares opinions on how to live that life a little better. These philosophical monologues are referred to as Chautauquas. Under the guise of a summer trip across America with an unknown protagonist (common knowledge it is Pirsig himself), his son, Chris, and two companions, Pirsig delves into the life of Phaedrus (his past self), meditation, and philosophy. He uses his friend, John, to illustrate the difference between the mindful exploration and ignorant bliss. While the unnamed narrator (Pirsig) constantly tunes his machine, John prefers to not know anything about how his engine runs. This equates to the two men seeing the world differently. The author learns to care deeply for anything that involves his life while John prefers to let a mechanic do all the maintenance in life. The narrator is anxious to teach John his ways and patiently waits for his motorcycle to break down so he can be the hero and enlighten him. For me, the book gets interesting when John and his wife go they separate way. The narrator and his son are left to travel the rest of the journey alone. The reasoning of temperate reason versus dark passion is fascinating.

Quotes I liked, “Sometimes it’s a little better to travel than to arrive” (p 187), “The real purpose of scientific method is to make sure Nature hasn’t misled you into thinking you know something you don’t actually know” (p 256), “The dog has a certain relationship to the wolf the shepherd may have forgotten” (p 412), and “I’m hanging onto my temper now” (p 497).

Author fact: Pirsig also wrote Lila: an Inquiry into Morals. I am not reading it for the Challenge even though it is the sequel to Zen. Zen is the only book I am reading.
Another author fact: Pirsig wrote instruction manuals for a living, but went home every night to work on Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. This reminded me of Joan Didion and how she would work at Vogue during the day but come home at night to work on her own novels.

Book trivia: Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance is a work of fictionalized autobiography.

Nancy said: Pearl called Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance a classic; highly readable and indispensable.

BookLust Twist: from More Book Lust in the chapter called “The Beckoning Road” (p 19).