Heart of Lies by M.L. Malcolm

It struck him hardest when he caught sight of her suddenly, hurrying through the front door, back from one of her social gatherings, or emerging from the bath, her glorious auburn hair wrapped up in a towel. At those impromptu moments the depth and intensity of his love for her seized him with a pyscial force that could have been agony. But it wasn't, any more than violent muscular contractions of an orgasm could be called pain. She was part of him. (p. 147)

Spare me.

This melodramatic, highly embellished depiction of love got old after the first few episodes. By the middle of the book, I was weary of how I'd imagine a Harlequin Romance to read. Mind-numbing banalities of a love affair involving a man who would murder, lie and cheat for self-advancement, while bringing his German wife away from her family of origin to live with him in Shanghai.

His love cannot protect his wife. He does not have the strength or character to be a father to his daughter. His lying heart served no purpose whatsoever for anyone, least of all for himself.

I was so disheartened.

Goodbye Tsugumi by Banana Yoshimoto

"It's a marvelous thing, the ocean. For some reason when two people sit together looking out at it, they stop caring whether they talk or stay silent. You never get tired of watching it. And no matter how rough the waves get, you're never bothered by the noise the water makes or by the commotion of the surface---it never seems too loud, or too wild." (p. 22)

"Each one of us continues to carry the heart of each self we've ever been, at every stage along the way, and a chaos of everything good and rotten. And we have to carry this weight all alone, through each day that we live. We try to be as nice as we can to the people we love, but we alone support the weight of ourselves." (p. 39)

"I felt a little lonely as I strolled back to the inn through the gathering dusk, alone this time. I wanted to hold on to the particular feeling of languor that I got as I walked the streets of this town, the town of my past, which I would lose when summer ended. This world of ours is piled high with farewells and goodbyes of so many different kinds, like the evening sky renewing itself again and again from one instant to the next-and I didn't want to forget a single one." (p. 111)

I kept expecting Tsugumi to die, kept waiting for the farewell, kept waiting for the tears that separation always brings me. But, this is not what I found. Instead, I found a story told through the eyes of a girl in her late teens: of her summer, the beginning of her new life in Tokyo, and most of all of the relationship she has with her dramatic, self-obsessed cousin, Tsugumi.

The most I can do at this point is write three favorite passages from the novel, which I did at the top of the post, and hope for a more enlightening discussion at Tanabata's on August 30.

I've Been Doing This For How Many Years Now?

It occurs to me, as I read two posts this week on blog friends celebrating their blog's anniversary, that I should commemorate mine in some way. Only, here's the problem.

When did I actually start?

I began blogging in May of 2006, uncertain of my place in the blog-o-sphere. On which passion of mine should I blog? Teaching? Perfume? Photography? Faith? When I landed on a few blogs of my oldest friends, (um, that would be you, Lesley, and you, Nancy, and you, Booklogged) I felt I'd found a home. Books! There's a topic I'd been wildly passionate about for more than thirty years. Fine, I'll blog about books.

In 2006, the book blogging world was a cozy one. There didn't seem to be a plethora of sites discussing books, and if there were, I'd found a sweet little niche of my own in which to circle. Now this world is huge! Now if I were to begin a book blog I'd be too intimidated to even start. So, I guess you could say it's good I began when I did. With whom I did.

"But, Bellezza," you might say, "where are your posts from 2006? I look on your site and all I can see are a few posts with no comments going back to 2007."

Yeah, about that. In my search for the perfect world, I left Blogger in April, 2009 thinking that WordPress would be more sophisticated. More interesting. More...something. I imported all my Blogger posts over there, taught myself a new platform, met lots of interesting people, and promptly missed the familiarity of Blogger. The cozy little niche I'd created if you will. So, I moved back (unaware that my posts would not be allowed to move back with me).

I've learned a lot. There is no perfect red in lipstick (although I could name several which are quite close). There is no perfect semi-oriental or chypre fragrance (although there are a lot that sitting on my dresser which I adore). There is no perfect blogging platform, blogger or book.

But, there are new novels to discover. There are friends with which to discuss them, and introduce me to more, and open my world into brand new adventures. For all of these things I'll be forever grateful.  So, thank you, from whenever I began and to wherever I'll be going.

Guest House by Barbara K. Richardson

Late that night, Melba heard a little yelp, a coyote yelp coming from behind the guest room door. Matt's cry pierced her sleep. She tried to imagine what it felt like to be Matt. It was unsettling, as she could not. Her childhood had been safe and solid. Her father hadn't kidnapped her. Her mother hadn't slept around. Her eleventh Thanksgiving had not included a toast to her mother's boyfriend's future. The only real grief Melba could recall had occurred at age sixteen, when she'd done battle with her mother over music. The intensity of the fight had shocked everyone. It marked their first separation--the initial wedge driven into their dour family peace. (p. 97)

Family peace. Now there's an oxymoron. Sometimes we find it, several times we don't. But, what keeps a family together? Love. Mutual respect. Unconditional commitment.

Eleven year old Matt's parents know nothing about these terms. They can only tell you about self seeking behavior: drinking, drugs, sexual partners beyond what one can count. All of this, while still married. It's a nebulous term for them, one with an elastic boundary line that just as often as not doesn't include Matt.

Melba, who on a whim bought a cottage, finds Matt. She finds him in person when his mother becomes her renter. She finds him emotionally when she connects with him, painting his room blue, taking him to Powell's, cooking him macaroni and cheese. She finds him maternally when she will not rest until he comes home. To her.

Because as everyone should know, your mother doesn't have to give birth to you to be your mother.

Melba looked hard into the future, as JoLee steered the Buick across the bridge toward home. Where would she find a strong principled male to stand in as Matt's father? The city was vast. Her powers of attraction were almost nil. She knew a pudgy, smart, fiercely independent woman could only give a boy so much. Melba had solved thousands of problems and could solve a few thousand more on Matt's behalf, but somehow, somewhere, some good man had to take Gene's pathetic legacy and drop kick it off the field of Matt Garry's life. All Melba could think of was authors: Hawthorne, Melville, London. Not enough. There was Dickens, but even he came up short. The pressure of parenthood trounced the classics. Which said the book Matt needed had yet to be written. The man they needed to meet had yet to be found. (p. 182)

Read what Barbara K. Richardson has to say about Discerning The Still Small Voice on Good Morning, America! Also, how she says one can turn a house of sorrow into a house of joy here.

A Revelatory Picture of Mount TBR

Kimbofo suggested we take a photograph of the books we have yet to read. As I went from shelf to shelf, posing my camera for an elegant picture, I recognized a problem.

The problem is not the amount of books to be read.

The problem is how badly my shelves are arranged.

Alphabetized? By author or genre? No.

All unread in one shelf or case? No.

Stacked neatly according to size? No.

When I've solved these minor details, I might post a more comprehensive photo gallery of my TBR library. Until then, a close up of one of the built-ins next to our fireplace will have to suffice.

(It's a good thing she didn't ask to see my lipstick drawer. Sadly, until tonight, I thought myself a fairly organized person.)

Whiter Than Snow by Sandra Dallas

No one knew what triggered the Swandyke avalanche that began at exactly 4:10 p.m. on April 20, 1920...But who cared what the cause was? Something started the slide that roared down Jubilee Mountain in Swandyke, Colorado, and that was all that mattered.

There was a sharp crack like the sound of distant thunder, and then the cornice of snow where Dave Buck had thrown his bottle, a crusted strip two hundred feet long that flared out over the mountain ridge, fractured and fell. It landed on layers of snow that covered the mountain slope to a depth of more than six feet-a heavy, wet, melting mass of snow snow on top, falling on frozen layers of snowpack that lay on a bed of crumbled ice...

The miners called such a phenomenon a "slab avalanche" because a curtain of snow slid down the slope, picking up speed at a terrible rate, until it reached one hundred miles an hour. Nothing stood in the way of the terrifying slide, because the mountainside was bare of trees. They had been torn out forty years earlier in the second wave of mining that came after the prospectors abandoned gold pans and sluice boxes.   (p. 4-5)

Whiter Than Snow is the first book by Sandra Dallas that I have read, but what Ivan Doig did in his novel The Whistling Season, Sandra does here: she gives me a heartfelt connection to the story through believable characters about whom I truly care. From the very beginning, when I was first introduced to the avalanche, I knew that something terrible was going to happen; something involving parents, and their children, who became victims to a more powerful disaster than they had the ability to control. What I didn't know is how meaningful these parents, and the way they dealt with their tragedy, would become.

Each chapter is a short story of sorts; while laying the background for the novel's tumultuous climax, we are introduced to the characters one by one. From the grandfather who failed to save his friend when the Sultana sank during the Civil War, to the story of a Jewish girl who ran off with the man her parents forbid her to marry, to the father of the only black child in the elementary school, we find a myriad of people who all have a different story to tell. Each one of them had at least one child in the path of the avalanche on that fateful day. Some of the children survived, others didn't.

But, that isn't the whole story. The rest of the story is what happens to those whose paths have met on that Colorado mountain, by the Fourth of July mine. How do they heal? How do they help each other manage this terrible tragedy, of the children's deaths and the pain that they suffered before the children were even born?

As I ponder the verse that Sandra gave in the flyleaf (Psalm 51:7) I realize that the snow was a cleansing force. Sure, it wreaked a path of destruction. But, after the purging, if you will, there was such a renewal, such an absolution from their past, that the characters seized their new lives and therefore healed their wounds.

Thank you to The Book Report Network and St. Martin's Press for the opportunity to read and review this spectacular book. Find other thoughts on Whiter than Snow from Staci, Diane, Becca and Booklogged.

Anticipating Paris in July With Bated Breath

After seeing Tamara's post reminding us to put up a button, and Frances' post about all the books she had laying around her house which would fit the theme, I decided to quickly do both.

There are many French books chez Bellezza, but the "problem" is I've read most of them! Behold:

* French Lessons by Peter Mayle

* Gourmet Rhapsody by Muriel Barbery

* Paris by Moon Metro

* Eugenie Grandet by Honore de Balzac

* Paris Stories by  Mavis Gallant

* French Women Don't Get Fat by Mireille Guiliano

* The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupery

Somewhere floating around this house is Paris To The Moon, which is one of my favorite French novels ever, and Candide by Voltaire, but I possibly have passed the later onward. At any rate, such a plethora of wonderful novels to (re)read! How many times can one read Madame Bovary (looking forward to this read-along at Nonsuch Book in the autumn) or The Little Prince? Never enough!

I have lots of stories to tell, as well, of our summers in France. Hopefully, I can convince my mother to write a guest post as she was the one who decided we would live there for several summers in the seventies.

Do you have French experiences? Novels? Perfumes? Will you participate in Paris in July?

Mailbox Monday: The Rembrandt Affair and Sea Escape (and winner of Based Upon Availability)

Into my mailbox this week came The Rembrandt Affair by Daniel Silva and Sea Escape by Emily Griffen.

I will be reviewing The Rembrandt Affair on August 16, and Sea Escape on July 22, for TLC Tours so please come by then for more thoughts on both of these novels. Thank you Putnam, and Simon & Schuster, for bringing these two to my mailbox.

The winner for last week's review, Based Upon Availability, is Kay of My Random Acts of Reading!

Congratulations, Kay, and thanks to all who entered; other give-aways will be coming.

 Happy Monday, everyone!

I Am Hutterite by Mary-Ann Kirkby

When I was first contacted to review I Am Hutterite I was immediately interested for two reasons: first, my mother grew up on the prairies of Canada just as the author, Mary-Ann Kirkby, did; secondly, my family is also a family of faith.

But, the concept of being a Hutterite was new to me. Based on the verse found in Acts 2:44-45 the Hutterites have a "commitment to the common ownership of goods (which) sets them apart from the Amish and the Mennonites and distinguishes them as the finest and most successful example of community life in the modern world. Today their population sits at approximately forty-five thousand on four hundred colonies in the northwestern United States and Canadian prairies." (p. xvii)

The story Mary-Ann Kikby tells of her growing up on the Fairholme Colony as a Hutterite is a fascinating one; the colony seems to run as an efficient, warm and loving place, with a specific part for each member:

Regardless of age or capacity, each member had a station to fill and meaningful work to do. No one received a salary, but everyone's needs were met. Sharing a common faith, most colony members were satisfied with a sustainable lifestyle that nurtured them physically and spiritually from cradle to the grave. Everyone ate, worked, and socialized together for the good of all. Women did the cooking, baking, and gardening while the men carried out the farming, mechanical, and carpentry chores. (p. 63-63)

We learn of their style of dress, the huge dining rooms where families eat together, the massive kitchens where women age 17 to 45 do the cooking under the leadership of one head cook for everyone. We learn of her father who came into the colony an outsider; although he won her mother's hand, he never developed complete unity with her brothers, one of whom was the colony leader.

After a series of great disagreements, one involving the death of his daughter because they were not granted permission to take her to the doctor, and one involving the purchase of necessary farm equipment needed for his job, her father decided to leave the colony. Taking his wife and seven children, Mary-Ann's father found a home on 'the outside' in which the family would live independently.

It was an enormous change for the children, suddenly thrust into the public school system, where their pronunciation of 'th' (nonexistent) and style of dress (antiquated) set them apart from the others. But, it was also an enormous challenge for their parents, who now must do all the tasks which had been shared by the colony members themselves.

Despite longing for ringlets and hot pants, lunches wrapped in Saran Wrap and brown paper bags, and acceptance from her peers at school, Mary-Ann realizes the honor in the life her parents gave her.

I am struck by how often we look for the perfect lifestyle. Some leave home in pursuit of freedom, and like the prodigal son return grateful for what they'd once scorned. Some set up an enclave of sorts, hoping that the group can meet one another's needs. Others live a quiet and orderly life such as a Catholic or a Buddhist monk. No one can find the answer to complete happiness on this earth because this world is not our home. But a life which honors God, and family, such as the Hutterite families have, cannot help but create a great foundation for themselves and their children.

(Thank you to a. larry ross communications for the copy of this book. Also, find the Facebook page for I Am Hutterite here.)

Hello, Japan! June's Task: Manga

This June, Tanabata invites us to discover, or continue one's love for, manga. Not owning any myself, but hearing all about their love for Gundam, or Naruto, from my class, I set off for the library this afternoon to see what I could see. After much perusing, I came home with:

Princess Tutu!

and Gankutsuou.

Grabbing my son and my husband, I sat them down with me and announced that we would be watching the first disc in each series...

As Princess Tutu opened, with a dream of her being a duck on a misty pond, my husband and son looked at each other. As it continued, with her running off to dance class, and finding a prince under some magic spell which rendered him almost robotic, we waited with small hope. When she threw herself at his feet sobbing hysterically, and screaming what a fool she'd made of herself by bumping into him, we turned it off. The baby voices, the ridiculously girly mannerisms, the enormous, liquid-filled eyes were simply too juvenile for even me, teacher of eight year olds, to manage.

Gankutsuou was much better. Two teenagers, in Paris, meet a mysterious stranger who is apparently the Count of Monte Cristo. He beguiles them into dining with him, then invites them the next day to watch an execution of prisoners. At least two of the prisoners are obviously innocent; another is certainly guilty by his own admission and flaunting of his violence. The Count insists that by pulling a card, one of the teens has the power to set a prisoner free. Of course, the name on the card he pulls is that of the true criminal. This film was at least a bit more riveting in its plot and characterization.

It seems to me, huge novice that I am, that anime/manga is either very childish and girl-oriented, or violent and sword-laden. I've only read a few manga novels, and I enjoyed the technique of going from back to front, right to left; finding meaning in the illustrations as well as the text; looking at the cleverly drawn figures which my class tries to mimic in their notebooks.

I must say, from this brief experience, I prefer the manga novels to the anime films. Either way, it was a fun exploration into the Japanese culture. Thanks, Tanabata!

Real World by Natsuo Kirino

"A while ago I saw the evening paper at the convenience store. An article about me. I wanted to see, like, what the world's thinking about it. It didn't seem real. It was like I was dreaming. I looked up and there on the TV was the front of my house and some reporter babbling away. 'What sort of ominous thing dwells in this suburban neighborhood? What happened to this boy who's disappeared? Is the same darkness in this boy hidden in this seemingly quiet neighborhood?' It felt so weird."

"D'ya feel like you wanna go back to the real world?"

"I can't," Worm said coolly. "This is my reality now."

"So why'd you make a reality like that happen? It's you who made things that way, right?" (p. 52)

When Toshiko Yamanaka's next door neighbor, Worm, murders his mother, she and her three high school friends become irrevocably involved. What perhaps started as a game, with the four of them answering Worm's calls on the cell phone that he stole from her, ends up as anything but fun.

Part of me cannot imagine that this novel could be based in anything close to reality; the part of me which watches the evening news in horror knows that it's all quite possible.

The real world...what is that? Is it the world that we're living in while fighting for our identity and place? Or, is it the world that we try to create as a safeguard from hurt? Worm says, while he's trying to run from the consequences of his actions:

"I was getting closer to the real essence of who I am. A revelation was welling up from inside me. What that essence was, I had no idea, but I was getting more and more confused, my existence more pointless by the minute. Is that who I am? Is that all? I got awfully sad, and tears started to stream down my face. I wiped away my tears with the prisoner's handkerchief, which smelled like perfume and detergent. From out of nowhere I felt like reality was going to crush me. The reality of having murdered my mother. Fight on! Fight on! I tried like crazy to stifle the tears. Just then the prisoner's cell phone rang. It was Toshi. I felt rescued." (p. 131)

But there is no rescue for these Japanese teenagers. The world they have created is one from which they cannot escape. It is no better than the real world in which they forge their daily existence.

Based Upon Availability by Alix Strauss (Review and Give-Away)

Alix Strauss uses the Four Seasons Hotel in Manhattan, NY, as the background for her novel Based Upon Availability. She has created fascinating female characters whose lives intersect against the backdrop of the hotel. Each woman has her own particular set of woes through which she is struggling, and I found I could identify with each one even if her life isn't necessarily indicative of my own:

• Morgan is the manager of the Four Seasons, mourning the death of her sister in their childhood
• Anne is the girl at the front desk with an obsessive compulsive disorder, tapping on the door frames, organizing the sugar packets, hanging on to assorted items she feels will bring her luck
• Trish struggles with her adoption and the engagement of her best friend, Olive
• Sheila has an affair with a psychologist, Marty, who is Morgan's uncle
• Robin is a real estate broker who has a tumultuous relationship with her bullying older sister
• Ellen longs for a baby so badly she is convinced she's pregnant, but she can't convince her husband
• Louise is a train wreck of a rock star whose manager has locked her into a room at the hotel to detox

The lives of these women are beautifully portrayed causing me to feel their pain and sympathize with their situations. Strauss' writing is exceptional; through her exploration of women's lives today, I am comforted that I'm not the only one who feels overcome from time to time with minor trials or disappointments which seem huge. Or, which will become huge if not confronted.

I will send one copy to a reader; simply leave a comment to enter the drawing. Winner to be announced a week from today.

Alix Strauss has been a featured lifestyle and trend writer on national morning and talk shows. Her articles cover a range of topics and have appeared in The New York Times, Time, Entertainment Weekly, Esquire and Departures, among others. Her other books include the award-winning collection of shorts, The Joy of Funerals, an anthology of blind date horror stories Have I Got a Guy For You, and most recently, Death Becomes Them: Unearthing the Suicides of the Brilliant, the Famous and the Notorious.







Alix’s TLC Book Tours TOUR STOPS:

Tuesday, June 8th: nomadreader
Wednesday, June 9th: Raging Bibliomania
Thursday, June 10th: Book Addiction
Wednesday, June 16th: Pam’s Perspective
Tuesday, June 22nd: Heart 2 Heart
Wednesday, June 23rd: Reading on a Rainy Day
Thursday, June 24th: As Usual, I Need More Bookshelves
Tuesday, June 29th: Booksie’s Blog

Wednesday, June 30th: Starting Fresh

Silence by Shusaku Endo

It is relatively easy for me to be a Christian in the United States. I take for granted the privileges that I have: to worship, to congregate, to dress as I please with regard only to my own sense of propriety. This novel took everything that I understand about living for Christ and placed it under glass for reexamination.

The novel opens with a Portuguese priest, Christavao Ferreira, apostatizing. What is that? It's putting your foot on an image of Christ and denying that you believe in Him. Ferreira had been a priest in Japan for thirty three years, with tremendous influence and importance. He had three students: Garrpe, Santa Marta and Rodriguez. It is Rodriguez' life as a priest in Japan that we most closely follow throughout the novel.

He went willingly into a Japanese civilization where Christians are persecuted by the authorities. They fight poverty and hatred, hunger and rejection, but worst of all to me was the torture that was inflicted on those who believed. Some were hung suspended by crosses placed at the edge of the sea, so that when the tide came in they eventually died from struggling to breath above it. Others were wrapped in straw mats, rowed out into the ocean and thrown overboard to drown. Still others were suspended in pits, with incisions placed above their ears so that the blood could drain out slowly, drop by drop, making death exceedingly drawn out and painful.

Rodriguez bravely faces all of this, convinced that he will endure, certain that he would never apostatize. Until the night that he hears the moaning of three Christians who have apostatized to no avail. They will hang suspended until Rodriguez himself denies his faith.

At one point in the novel, those who believe are told that stepping on the fumie (the picture of Christ) does not signify what goes on in one's heart:

The officials kept insisting to the Christians that to trample on the fumie was no more than a formality. All you had to do was to put your foot on it. If you did that, nobody cared what you believed. In accordance with orders from the magistrate, you were asked to put your foot lightly on the fumie; and then you would immediately be released. (p. 116)

But, don't our actions reflect our hearts? How can we say we believe in one instance, and deny it in another? This is the terrible dilemma afflicting Rodriguez; he cannot bring himself to deny Christ, but neither can he bear the suffering of those suspended in the pit because he won't.

Over all of this, is the concept of God's silence. Why is He silent when His people suffer? Such a difficult question. Or, does the title also imply that His people should be silent as well? If we're silent, we're not voicing our denial, which has such serious implications according to the Bible:

"Who is the liar? It is the man who denies that Jesus is the Christ. Such a man is the Antichrist-he denies the Father and the Son. No one who denies the Son has the Father; whoever acknowledges the Son has the Father also." 1 John 2:23

Tanabata is holding a read-along for this fascinating book on June 28. Won't you join us for what's bound to be a very thought provoking discussion?

"Christovao Ferreira was a Portuguese Jesuit priest who served as a missionary in Japan during the the Tokugawa period. Under torture, he agreed to apostasy, and continued to live in Japan. Later becoming a Zen priest, he published a pamphlet in 1636 which attacked Christianity and endorsed the official Neo-Confucian views of the Japanese elite. His pamphlet criticizes Catholicism from the inside, using as weapons biblical science, Averroist Aristotlism, Erasmianism, and Marranism." (source)

Friday Fill-Ins

1. Having time off in the Summer feels great; even though I miss my class, I don't miss the bureaucracy, or meetings, or grading, or endless talking.

2. The solution is to trust and obey.

3. I seem to fall asleep when I'm reading in the afternoon.

4. How about a big juicy cheeseburger and extra crispy fries?

5. Cycling is something I highly recommend!

6. Imagine keeping my template for longer than a month.

7. And as for the weekend, tonight I'm looking forward to going to the beach, tomorrow my plans include going to Printer's Row Lit Fest in Chicago and Sunday, I want to finish Silence. Or, some of the books I'm bound to bring home from Printer's Row!
 
Happy Weekend!

Signed Copies of Books

Booking Through Thursday asks, "Do signed copies excite you? Tempt you? Delight you? Or does it not matter to you?"

I don't have many signed copies of books. I grabbed Neil Gaiman's autographed copy of The Graveyard Book when he came to our town this winter. Sadly, it's not particularly meaningful to me.

My most beloved signed copy is The Love Letters which Madeleine L'Engle signed for me personally when she came to Wheaton College in 1987. She has long been one of my favorite authors, and it's especially important to me now that she's now longer living.

Perhaps the autograph I would most desire is that of Haruki Murakami's. I've looked at books which he has signed on eBay, and can't possibly justify the price. But, that is one signature which would be the most valuable to me should I be so lucky as to have it.

Do you have an author whose signature you would value the most? Are you so fortunate as to have a book signed by him?

Library Loot: With A Joyful Heart

I have a love/hate relationship with the library in our town. When I was little, I was very adept at running up enormous fines, up to .20 cents a week sometimes, which made my mother very disgruntled. What's so hard about getting your books back on time? Nothing, in theory, but I seemed unable to do it for much of my life.

Then, I began buying books at Borders. Barnes and Noble. Amazon.com. The problem with this plan is not so much the money as the storage. Where does one keep one's accumulated novels? Hence, my thoughts frequently turn towards a Kindle...

At any rate, yesterday  my son said, "Mom! Let's go sign up for the Summer reading program at the library!" It thrilled my heart, that at 19 he remembered the summers of his childhood when I took him to read a certain number of pages per week and color in the appropriate section of the log. Now, he's signing up at the adult station like me; how far we've come.

I totally scored at the library! Totally! Normally, I go with a disdainful heart, certain that the librarian will ask me if I've washed my hands, or scold me for whispering, or tell  me that they don't have the book I'm looking for. But, yesterday, behold:

• Real World by Natsuo Kirino
• A Quiet Life by Kenzaburo Oe (winner of the 1994 Nobel Prize for literature) 
• In The Miso Soup by Ryu Murakami

What did you get? Or, do you frequent the bookstores?
Library Loot host this week is at The Adventures of An Intrepid Reader.

Out by Natsuo Kirino

She had no need for such emotions any more. She'd left them behind. She understood that she'd chosen her path out of the same sense of isolation that had driven her to help Yayoi.


She had crossed a line that day. She had cut up a man's body and scattered it across the city. And even if she could erase the memory of what she'd done, she could never go back to the way she'd been.


With barely any warning, a wave of nausea rose up in her and she vomited beside the car; but the nausea stayed with her. She dropped to her knees, tears streaming from her eyes, as the yellow bile poured out of her mouth. (p. 291)

If you think the cover of this novel is shocking, you should read the book. I was absolutely mesmerized, drawn in to every detail and event as if I was watching it on film. Almost as if I was there myself. It's no wonder this novel has been reviewed with high praise in all the previous Japanese literature challenges. What is a wonder is that I'd taken so long to read it for myself.

It's not just about murder, though, or cutting up the deceased's body into fifty little pieces and placing them in garbage bags to disperse throughout the city.

It's not just an intricately woven plot, brilliantly conceived and executed.

It's about isolation. Power. Bad choices. And what would you do to escape the trials of your life? What irrevocable damage has been done in our world in the name of freedom? What do we really have the power to escape from? Thought provoking stuff.

Out has got to be one of my favorite reads of the year. No wonder it won the Grand Prix, Japan's top award for mystery.

(Find other thoughts on Out from Novel Insights, Literary Feline, another cookie crumbles, The Reading Life, Terri B., and  Suko (coming soon).

Asleep

One of my oldest friends, from Jr. High School, used to laugh at me for "always having my nose in a book." Now, she is almost more of a bibliophile than I.

I came home from driving our neighbor to the eye doctor last week, and I found this new paperback on our kitchen counter from my friend. Knowing that I have an intense passion for Japanese literature, and finding some of it come her way, she purchased this for me at a bookstore in Bloomingdale. Here's a brief synopsis:

In Asleep, Banana Yoshimoto, the internationally best-selling author of Kitchen, gives us three dazzling stories of young women bewitched into a spiritual sleep. One, mourning for a lost lover, finds herself sleepwalking at night. Another, who has embarked on a relationship with a man whose wife is in a coma, finds herself suddenly unable to stay awake. A third finds her sleep haunted by a woman whom she was once pitted against in a love triangle. Sly and mystical as a ghost story, with a touch of Kafkesque surrealism, Asleep is a delight. (back cover)

It will be one of my reads for the Japanese Literature Challenge 4. Thoughts from those who have already read it can be found here: Nymeth, Terri, Melody, and Amanda. Other Monday mailbox finds can be found here.

I've Moved Back To Blogger

You probably have seen my unrest: a new template every other week, a new header picture, a new background until I frustrated even myself.

With the launch of my fourth Japanese Literature Challenge, I've decided to return to Blogger where I first began Dolce Bellezza in 2006. It keeps everything neatly tied together. It should assuage my search for what I couldn't quite find in WordPress.

Please change your address books for me. Please update your readers so that I don't lose your voice. Your company. Your insightful comments. You'll find me here. I'll be waiting for you.

XO, Bellezza

Hello, Again

I've been away from Blogger for a year, taking a detour by way of WordPress. It wasn't for nothing since I made many new friends, and learned lots of new tricks with HTML code. But, it's time to "return home" where I "lived" since 2006.

I missed the simplicity. I missed the way that I didn't compulsively check my stats every time I opened my dashboard. I missed being more closely attached to Google and all its amenities especially since I always host the Japanese Literature Challenge on Blogger.

I've erased most of my old posts, and reposted others; so many seemed like trite gibberish upon rereading them. And, this is a new beginning after all.

Welcome back,
Bellezza

Friday Fill-Ins

1. Italy is my favorite place to travel to in Europe, but in the states it would be the Northwoods.
2. When I think about my childhood, I often remember loving to read and being terrified of sports. Being picked last for the team, and all that...
3.  The ability to laugh together makes for a good friend.
4. The wind in the trees, the rain on my skin, a book in my hand.
5. Thinking of eating barbecued ribs on the Fourth of July is so exciting!
6. My best friend knows that I never mean to hurt him.
7. And as for the weekend, tonight I'm looking forward to finishing Natsuo Kirino's book Out, tomorrow my plans include a haircut from Santo and Sunday, I want to worship at church since missing last week's service in order to Bike The Drive.

Find more Friday Fill-ins here.

The Love Ceiling

"There is a glass ceiling for women, Jack," I stared at my painting in the dim light next to the washer and dryer. "And it's made out of the people we love." (p. 161)
Sixty-four year old Anne Koroda Duppstadt is the narrator for most of this novel, which tells of her life as an angry artist's daughter, a retiring husband's wife, and a bereft daughter's mother. While wanting to be the best she can in each of these roles, she struggles against a bitter animosity toward her famous father for the way he so cruelly treated her as a child. She also seeks to develop her own skills as an artist, which her father consistently undermined.

As a daughter, wife and mother myself, I have often examined these roles in my own life. Where can the line be drawn between serving others and oneself? We don't want to be selfish, nor do we want to be trodden upon...

Author Jean Davies Okimoto does a masterful job of showing us the heart of a woman who cares deeply for her family, while at the same time wanting to develop her own skills and courage. Confidence is difficult for her to attain, especially when her father and first husband belittled her efforts, or sought domination through their own anger conveniently labeled as an "artistic temperament".

Yet her journey shows us how necessary it is to not be intimidated, but to confront our feelings and those who have helped form them, in order to avoid resentment. In order to forgive. In order to heal.

Jean Davies Okimoto is the recipient of the American Library Association “Best Books for Young Adults” Award, the International Reading Association's Reader's Choice Award, the IRA/CBC Young Adults’ Choice Award, the Parents’ Choice Award, the Washington Governor's Award, the 1993 Maxwell Medallion for Best Children's Book of the Year, and two of her books have been recognized as Smithsonian Notable Books. In 2007 she received the Green Earth Book Award from the Newton Marasco Foundation and in 2008 the Green Prize for Sustainable Literature honor book, a national award given by the Santa Monica Public Library.

In connection with her non-fiction title, Boomerang Kids: How to Live with Adult Children who Return Home, she has appeared on the Today Show, the CBS Morning Show, The Oprah Winfrey Show, and CNN. Her publishers include Atlantic Monthly Press, Putnam, Little, Brown & Co., Dell, Scholastic, HarperCollins, and the Simul Press in Japan which has published Japanese editions of her novels My Mother Is Not Married To My Father and It's Just Too Much. Her short stories have also appeared in four Delacourte anthologies, Short Stories by Outstanding Writers for Young Adults. Shelley Duvall produced an animated version of Blumpoe the Grumpoe Meets Arnold the Cat for the series "Bedtime Stories" which was narrated by John Candy and appeared on HBO and Showtime. 

Read an excerpt of The Love Ceiling here.
Check out an interview with author Jeanie Okimoto here

Jean Davies Okimoto’s TLC Book Tours TOUR STOPS:

Tuesday, June 1st: Book Club Classics
Wednesday, June 2nd:  Patricia’s Wisdom
Monday, June 7th: Lit and Life
Wednesday, June 9th: Rundpinne
Thursday, June 10th: Reading, ‘Riting, and Retirement
Monday, June 14th: Joyfully Retired
Wednesday, June 16th: Crazy for Books
Thursday, June 17th: Luxury Reading
Monday, June 21st: Erasing the Bored
Wednesday, June 23rd: Mooncat Farms Meanderings
Thursday, June 24th:  carp(e) libris reviews
Monday, June 28th: Feminist Review

Book Suggestions for the JLC4

A Personal Matter by Oe
A Quiet Life by Oe
After Dark by Murakami
All She Was Worth by Miyabe
Asleep by Yoshimoto
Battle Royale by Koushon Takami
Beyond the Blossoming Field by Jun'ichi Watanabe
Be With You by Takuji Ichikawa
Confessions of A Mask by Mishima
Dreaming Pachinko by Adamson
First Snow on Fuji by Kawabata
Five by Endo by Endo
Goodbye Tsugumi by Banana Yoshimoto
Grotesque by Natsuo Kirino
Hard Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World by Murkami
I am A Cat by Natsume
In The Miso Soup by Ryu Murakami
Kafka On The Shore by Murakami
Kitchen by Yoshimoto
Kokoro by Soseki
Kusamakura by Soseki
Memoirs of the Priest Honkaku by Yasushi Inoue
Musashi by Eiji Yoshikawa
Nip the Buds, Shoot the Kids by Oe
Never Let Me Go by Ishiguro
Norwegian Wood by Murakami
Now You're One Of Us by Nonami
Paprika by Yasutaka Tsutsu
Rashomon by Akutagawa
Real World by Natsuo Kirino
Remains of The Day by Ishiguro
Rouse Up O Young Men of The New Age by Oe
Silence by Endo
Singing Shijimi Clams by Kojima
Singular Rebellion by Maruya
Snow Country by Kawabata
Some Prefer Nettles by Tanizaki
Supermarket by Azuchi
Strangers by Yamada
Tales of Moonlight and Rain by Ueda
Teach us to Outgrow Our Madness by Kenzaburo Oe
Ten Nights' Dreams by Soseki
The Bells of Nagasaki by Nagai
The Dancing Girl of Izu by Kawabata
The Diving Pool: Three Novellas by Ogawa
The Elephant Vanishes by Murakami
The Fox Woman by Johnson
The Housekeeper and The Professor by Ogawa
The Old Capital by Kawabata
The Makioka Sisters by Junichiro Tanizaki
The Master Key by Togawa
The Narrow Road to the Deep North by Basho
The Pillow Book by Shonagon
The Sailor Who Fell From Grace With The Sea by Mishima
The Sea of Fertility by Yukio Mishima
The Setting Sun by Dazai
The Sound of Waves by Mishima
The Stationmaster by Asada
The Tale of Genji by Shikibu
The Temple of The Golden Pavilion by Mishima
The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle by Murakami
The Woman In The Dunes by Abe
Thirst for Love by Mishima
Underground: The Tokyo Gas Attack and the Japanese Psyche by Murakami
What I Talk About When I Talk About Running by Murakami
When The Emporer Was Divine by Otsuka
Yakuza Moon by Tendo

Welcome to The Fourth Japanese Literature Challenge

See how patiently they wait, these books in my Japanese literature stack? Most of them have come by recommendation or review:

Supermarket from Chris

The Old Capital from Mark David

Silence from 3M and Tanabata

Out from Novel Insights and Mel U

Nocturnes from Claire

Inspector Iminishi Investigates from Professor B. Worm

Others kindly arrived from Kodansha, International.

Also lined up are my unread Murakami novels, a problem I wish to remedy by this time next year:



I am blissfully submerged in Japanese literature. One of the best parts? Less than five years ago, the only Japanese literature book I'd read was Ishiguro's Remains of the Day.

But, in 2006, when the first Japanese Literature Challenge began, my reading life was greatly enhanced by the knowledge of fellow bloggers much more well read in this genre than I. That's the beauty of hosting a challenge: the hostess is greatly enriched by the participants, such as she hopes the participants enrich one another.

I'm so excited to announce the beginning of the fourth Japanese Literature Challenge. I have a list of book suggestions here, a review site set up for us here, and a button should you wish to use it here:









Won't you join in the experience? Simply read one or more works of Japanese literature between June 1, 2010 and January 30, 2011. If you choose, leave a link to your review on the review site. Also, leave your name in the comments here so that I can add you to the list of participants.

I can hardly wait to begin, and I'm hoping you feel the same way.

ようこそ4日本文学への挑戦 Or, Welcome To The 4th Japanese LiteratureChallenge

See how patiently they wait, these books in my Japanese literature stack? Most of them have come by recommendation or review:

Supermarket from Chris

The Old Capital from Mark David

Silence from 3M and Tanabata

Out from Novel Insights and Mel U

Nocturnes from Claire

Inspector Iminishi Investigates from Professor B. Worm

Others kindly arrived from Kodansha, International.

Also lined up are my unread Murakami novels, a problem I wish to remedy by this time next year:



I am blissfully submerged in Japanese literature. One of the best parts? Less than five years ago, the only Japanese literature book I'd read was Ishiguro's Remains of the Day.

But, in 2006, when the first Japanese Literature Challenge began, my reading life was greatly enhanced by the knowledge of fellow bloggers much more well read in this genre than I. That's the beauty of hosting a challenge: the hostess is greatly enriched by the participants, such as she hopes the participants enrich one another.

I'm so excited to announce the beginning of the fourth Japanese Literature Challenge. I have a list of book suggestions here, a review site set up for us here, and a button should you wish to use it here:

Won't you join in the experience? Simply read one or more works of Japanese literature between June 1, 2010 and January 30, 2011. If you choose, leave a link to your review on the review site. Also, leave your name in the comments here so that I can add you to the list of participants.

I can hardly wait to begin, and I'm hoping you feel the same way.