Reading material

The last 5 books I read were: High Fidelity (Nick Hornby), I am Charlotte Simmons (Tom Wolfe), Anna Karenina (Tolstoy), Teacher Man (Frank McCourt), and The Glass Castle (Jeannette Walls), which I reviewed here.

The good: The Glass Castle, Teacher Man, and Anna Karenina.

Recently I have really enjoyed reading memoirs, especially The Glass Castle, which was an incredible, engrossing read. Teacher Man is the memoir of the author's 25 years teaching English and creative writing in the NYC school system. I had some pretty great English teachers in my day but none really strayed outside of the curriculum like he did. Interesting and unexpected perspective on teaching, I thought.

I adore lengthy, detailed, complicated fictional narratives and I have to admit that, when I opened the book and saw the list of characters spanned 5 pages, I got excited. Anna Karenina was romantic and sad, the characters very well-developed, but the book itself... slow and very time-consuming read, which has been my experience with other Russian works (The Brothers Karamozov and Crime and Punishment, mainly). I saved it for long travel days, which worked out perfectly.

The bad: High Fidelity, I am Charlotte Simmons.

To be completely simplistic, I hated High Fidelity. It was the most annoying book I have read in a long time. I didn't relate to or have any sympathy for any of the immature, self-absorbed characters and I couldn't find their lives at all humorous (which I think they were intended to be).

I Am Charlotte Simmons was impressive for the amount of work and research Wolfe probably devoted to this novel, but I think it was intended for older folks who want to be shocked about what happens on college campuses. What, there is rampant drinking and drugs at parties? What, there is academic cheating? What, STDs and sex?

The new: I'm off to a new start with Shark's Fin and Sichuan Pepper: A Sweet-Sour Memoir of Eating in China, by Fuschia Dunlop. As I would love to write a travel and food memoir about Vietnam one day, I am loving it. The description of her life in Chengdu and her immersion in Sichuan culture is so compelling. I lived and studied in Paris for a year in college and found that difficult. My struggles just seem laughable now, compared to living in Asia. And reading about how she learns to kill, cook, and enjoy the food there is great fun, sometimes stomach-turning, but fun nonetheless. Mark and I are already huge fans of Sichuan food, especially the tofu skins and cold tripe appetizer spiced with chile and tingly Sichuan peppercorn at our favorite Houston place, but now I can't wait to try her recipes for dan dan noodles, fish-flavored eggplant (which has no fish), and twice-cooked pork.