Bookworm – Page 2 – …on the B.L.

What I’ll Be Reading

June 30, 2018 RaeAnna

I’m off on vacation! I will be gone for four weeks. Have no fear, I will be posting regularly. Probably more than I normally post because I will be doing a whole bunch of cool stuff. Not only will there be food and travel posts, but I will continue reviewing a bunch of books. I already have a couple done and ready to go.

So. What am I bringing to read?

Fruit of the Drunken Tree by Ingrid Roja Contreras
One of the most anticipated novels of the summer, I’m excited to dig in.

No One Tells You This by Glynnis Macnicol
Simon & Schuster sent me this book, and I’m excited to read a new feminist memoir.

Born a Crime by Trevor Noah
I’ve been wanting to read this, and I’m getting around to it!

The Color of Law by Richard Rothstein
I’m anticipating this to be a very sobering book, but I like a dose of reality on vacation.

The Forty Rules of Love by Elif Shafak
This was suggested to me, and I can’t wait to read my first Turkish author.

I Must Say by Martin Short
I have always enjoyed Martin Short’s comedy, so this should be good.

My Life on the Road by Gloria Steinem
The iconic feminist has lived her life traveling finally starts telling her stories from the road.

The Kitchens of the Great Midwest by J. Ryan Stradal
As an Iowan on my way to the midwest, this is a no brainer.

The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien
I’m rereading this because it was a favorite of mine when I was a whole lot younger.

The Singles Game by Lauren Weisberger
A fun, light read about the intense world of elite tennis by the author of The Devil Wears Prada.

Ten books to last me four weeks. Hopefully I will read them all. It’s the goal! Luckily, I’ll be in the vicinity of bookstores my entire trip, so if I run out I can always go buy more!

Travel, Travel Eats

Superior Bathhouse Brewery

June 8, 2018 RaeAnna

Superior Bathhouse Brewery in downtown Hot Springs, Arkansas is a must. I go every time I am in town. I have introduced several friends and even family to this lovely place.

Hot Springs, Arkansas is known for their hot springs. Wow! Shocker, I know. Beautiful bathhouses sprung up in downtown for the rich and famous way-back-when. They fell into disrepair for many years. Many have been refurbished because they’re historic, and it would be a tragedy to see the architecture go to waste. There are two which have remained functional bathhouses. One is a store. One is a museum. Another was turned into a BREWERY!

Beau was trying to get in on my root beer.

I am not a drinker anymore, but all my friends and family are. They do have a killer root beer, which I imbibe with much gusto. I am super picky about root beer, so this is a glowing and hard earned recommendation. They have eighteen beers on tap. Some they make themselves; others they bring in. The floor is white hexagon tile with black grout, trés retro. There are tables, a hightop, seats along the huge window front, and picnic benches out front – hello dog friendly! The servers are always lovely and knowledgeable about the beers on tap. It’s a great place to sit and enjoy a drink after or before a day of shopping or spas or just to people watch.

My family got a flight of all 18 beers on tap.

The building they inhabit is Superior Bathhouse, so the name stays true to its roots. It stood vacant for thirty-ish years before Rose Schweikhart moved to Hot Springs in 2011 to open a brewery. It’s the first of its kind in several ways. It is the first and only brewery housed in a U.S. National Park. It took Schweikhart two years to negotiate a lease agreement with the federal government, but she did it! The city is famous for their 144° spring water, which is used at the brewery to brew beer. They are the only brewery in the world to use thermal spring water for brewing. Woah. They opened their doors in 2013 and continually make new and unusual beers to satisfy pallets of all inclination. Seriously. They’re cool. Not only are they are brewery, they are also a full service restaurant and event space. The food is pretty awesome too.

I love going. I don’t think I have been to Hot Springs without stopping in for a root beer since I discovered it in 2014. I’m a touch obsessed. If you ever stop in and post to Instagram, make sure to use #hotspringsontap.

Superior Bathhouse Brewery
329 Central Avenue
Hot Springs, AR 71901
Opens at 11:00

A mandatory ‘let’s see the cool floor’ picture.

Books

The Book of Tea

May 5, 2018 RaeAnna

Difficulty: II
Length: I
Quick Review: A beautiful look into the history and importance of tea from a master and historian.

Written by and for the tea lover. This incredibly short book is jam packed with teaism. In reality, The Book of Tea isn’t a book at all but a long essay by the Japanese scholar Kakuzo Okakura. Written in English for the Western world to pear inside the world and history of Japan through tea. Tea is a central component of Japanese and Asian identity. It has played a major role in their culture for a millenia and some. With a beginning in the religious and medicinal worlds, tea evolved into a staple beverage in Asia and eventually the world. As times changed so did tea. It has lived a life in three different stages with three different preparations. Boiled Tea came from a cake or brick of tea, which, at one point in time, the ingredients included salt and even onions. After that period, Whipped Tea was concocted from a powder forever leaving behind salt and onion. As technology progressed, tea arrived in its modern form of Steeped Tea utilizing the leaves. Whipped Tea or powdered tea is still present but not popular.

The first traces of tea, as we know it, arriving in Europe was documented by Marco Polo in 879. Tea gained immense popularity in the sixteenth century as access increased and cost decreased. Tea became a drink of the people no longer reserved for the filthy rich and royal.

Okakura talks extensively about the history and significance of tea. It embedded itself in the Asian cultures and religions. Tea plays a significant role in Taoism and Zennism. The tea ceremony has evolved as Tea Masters have mastered the art. Okakura discusses the masters in length before describing the tea ceremony. The efforts required to hold the ceremony are extensive starting long before one even begins. The tea room must be built from the best materials, flowers must be just so, the tea must be grown correctly, so on and so forth. Like many things in Japan, the tea ceremony is executed with precision and mindfulness.

Okakura’s first language was Japanese, but he wrote The Book of Tea in English. The language is simple, elegant, and captivating. He draws the reader into his world. Through focusing on tea, he is able to allow the Western world into a culture vastly different than our own. His words are about more than tea; they are about appreciating the beauty in life.

Memorable Quotes:
“Tea began as a medicine and grew into a beverage.”
“In joy or sadness, the flowers are our constant friends.”
“He only who has lived with the beautiful can die beautifully.”

Title: The Book of Tea
Author: Kakuzo Okakura
Publisher: Dover Publications, Inc
Copyright: 1964
ISBN: 9780486200705

Books

A Week in Winter

December 18, 2017 RaeAnna

Read Yes
Length 464
Quick Review How one woman’s dream brought a group of strangers together while they struggle through their own difficult situations.

A Week in Winter was her last novel and published posthumously in 2012 after her death in the same year. Binchy has written a multitude of novels, but this is the first I have read. In my opinion, it’s a wonderful novel to end an already amazing literary career.

Binchy was Irish and wrote about her country in A Week in Winter. Chicky Starr is from a remote town, Stoneybridge, in west Ireland. After moving to New York City in her youth, she returns to Stoneybridge, where she turns an old house into a beautiful hotel, Stone House. The town believes her crazy, but a few devote their time and futures into the dream. The dream comes to fruition when a hodge-podge group of people stay during the opening week.

The book is divided into chapters focusing on individuals lives and the events which bring them to the house. The characters are flawed and looking for respite or wholeness or the hotel has simply happened upon them. The hotel becomes a beautifully silent and simultaneously powerful character supporting each character through their personal journeys. The characters come from all walks of life and several countries in Europe. Some lives intertwine with others in close or remote ways. Binchy does not strive to have her characters adored. Like people, she writes them with various characteristics, flaws, and, at times, no redeeming qualities.

This novel isn’t a Christmas story, but it is a winter story. The perfect companion for a chilly evening, a fire, and a mug of something warm, or if you live somewhere warm, it will make you crave a chilly winter.

Memorable Quotes
“And anyway, there’s more to life than just sex and kittens.”

Title: A Week in Winter
Author: Maeve Binchy
Publisher: Anchor Books (Random House)
Copyright: 2012
ISBN: 9780307475503

Books

Blackass

September 25, 2017 RaeAnna

Read Yes
Length 272
Quick Review A modern retelling of Kafka’s Metamorphosis exploring identity through race in Lagos, Nigeria after a black man wakes up as a white man.

A. Igoni Barrett brings a new depth to a classic novel by diving into the complicated issue of race in Nigeria as well as the power of perception. Barrett writes with incredible wit.

Furo wakes up one morning to discover his once dark skin is now very pink and pale. Blackass follows Furo as he navigates the world he was once familiar with through very different eyes.

Furo is a young man in his early thirties. For the young and all ages in between, Twitter and Facebook have become incredibly integral parts of our lives, and Barrett is able to incorporate these aspects into the narrative. An entire section of the novel is dedicated to sleuthing through tweets, as we have all cyberstalked someone once. Barrett also describes the difficult challenge of trying to shut down a Facebook page and needing Google to find the answer. Technology has permeated every aspect of our lives including our literature.

Barrett explores how truly powerful perception can be both in favor and against a person. As people, we immediately begin sorting people into different classes by the way they look. Though we do our best to fight it, it is an intrinsic quality we have. Even the Nigerians tend to prefer whiteness to blackness in everything they do from the little things from bleaching cream to deferential treatment to blatant statements that white westerners are more together than black Africans.

The most interesting aspect of the novel is how well Barrett is able to capture the depth and range of the female experience in such a short novel. There are several women who weave in and out of Furo’s story. Each woman is able to portray a different woman’s part in society. In moments, I was astounded at the depth of understanding Barrett had for the female condition. It is powerful and moving in its unwavering honesty.

Barrett writes a captivating novel from beginning to end.

Memorable Quotes
“Then again, she had never faced the parental pressure he did – a woman can find a husband to take care of her, but a man must take care of his wife…”
“… I was already trying to say what I see now, that we are all constructed narratives.”
“A white man in Lagos has no voice louder than the dollar sign branded on to his forehead.”
“No one asks you to be born, to be black or white or any colour in between, and yet the identity a person is born into becomes the hardest to explain to the world.”
“Who I was as a person was more than what I looked like, but then again, how people saw me was a part of who I was.”
“Womanhood comes with its peculiar burdens, among them the distant reminder of subordinate status whose dominant symptom was uninvited sexual attention from men.”
“Pity the man who never becomes the woman he could be.”
“‘And you’re a white man. You don’t have to fuck anyone for favours.’”
“No one’s path is laid out from birth, we must all choose our own through life, and what greater gift is given a person than the chance to see the destinations where the roads not taken might have led you.”

Title: Blackass
Author: A. Igoni Barrett
Publisher: Graywolf Press (Vintage/Penguin Random House)
Copyright: 2015
ISBN: 9781555977337

Books, Fiction

Interpreter of Maladies

August 10, 2017 RaeAnna

Read Yes
Length 198
Quick Review A collection of eight short stories exploring the meaning of disappointment and unfulfilled expectations.

I had never read anything by Jhumpa Lahiri, so I was excited to experience her writing for the first time. She did not disappoint. Lahiri explores the meaning of disappointment and the feeling of unfulfilled expectations. In most of the stories, the hopes and expectations of the characters are met in a drastically different way than they hope; driving home the message that life gives us what we want, it may not be how we want. Lahiri shows the build up, the enjoyment of living in a world filled with expectation, the realisation, and the mourning period when the inevitability of life is so painfully tangible.

The following eight short stories are in the order they appear in the book. They are each around twenty pages in length, give or take a few.

A Temporary Matter
Shukumar and Shoba were both born in the US. They are of Indian heritage; unlike Shoba, Shukumar does not have childhood memories of visits to India. They are going through a difficult time in their marriage after the stillbirth of their first child because the pain has become a barrier dividing them instead of bringing them together. They reconnect during an hourly power outtage every night for a week.

When Mr. Pirzada Came to Dine
A young girl and her family open their home to Mr. Pirzada, a Bengali man working on his degree in the US while separated from his family. The girl is torn between feeling like an outsider in her own home and excitement for having a new person visit every evening. She is also beginning to understand the difference between her family’s culture and that of the one she is surrounded by.

Interpreter of Maladies
Mr. Kapasi is a driver for tourists on the weekend, but during the week he works as an interpreter for a doctor.. He is driving a young family and developes a small crush on the wife. As they begin to talk, he realizes she is just as flawed as everyone else in the world and not a perfect creature.

Sexy
A young, career woman, Miranda, began an affair with an older married, Indian man, Dev, as she listens to her coworker, Laxmi, console a cousin whose husband is having an affair. To keep her affair alive, she spends money on a beautiful dress and lingerie hoping to wear it for Dev one day. Miranda ends up babysitting for the son of Laxmi’s cousin, who is aware of the affair his father had. Through an afternoon spent with a young boy, she becomes aware of the consequences her situation can have.

Mrs. Sen’s
Mrs. Sen watches Eliot after school, as she is trying to learn how to drive a car. Mrs. Sen is learning to drive and function in a new society. Mrs. Sen hates being far away from her home in India where she has whole fish and independence without a car. She has everything her family believes the could want like a rainbow of saris and a professional husband, but she misses the comfort of home.

This Blessed House
Twinkle and Sanjeev are newly weds in a house. Sanjeev isn’t sure he loves his wife but he’s irritated by her love of finding and keeping the Christian items left throughout the house by the previous owners. At their housewarming everyone is dazzled by Twinkle, and Sanjeev realizes he enjoys the status of his new, beautiful, young, charming wife.

The Treatment of Bibi Haldar
Bibi Haldar was plagued by an illness no one could diagnose or fix – which was probably epilepsy. She dreamt of having a husband to take care of. It was her only hope, and she couldn’t stop talking about it. After a particular episode, she was prescribed marriage to ease her symptoms, but no one would take her on as a wife because of her reputation as a lune. After a difficult few months of seclusion she was found pregnant. She never married, but, instead, had a son who she cared for without being plighted by another episode.

The Third and Final Continent
He was born in India, studied in London, and worked in Cambridge at MIT. His wife Mala joined him in the US having been married for six weeks but only spending five days together. They were strangers at the beginning of their journey, but looking back on their life in Cambridge they can’t imagine not knowing each other.

Memorable Quotes
““I only spoil children who are incapable of spoiling.””
“… life, I realized, was being lived in Dacca first.”
“It means loving someone you don’t know.”
“He did not know if he loved her.”
“ She wanted to be spoken for, protected, placed on her path in life.”

Title: Interpreter of Maladies
Author: Jhumpa Lahiri
Publisher: Mariner Books (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt)
Copyright: 1999
ISBN: 9780395927205