The Teahouse Fire by Ellis Avery (2006)

Wonderful, wonderful book. Historical fiction at its best. Aurelia, a young girl from New York, loses her mother and travels to Japan with her uncle. She runs away during a fire and is taken in by a Japanese family who name her Urako. We see Japan from 1866-1891, as they open their country to Western influences. The Shinn family has done tea ceremonies for generations, but even those have to change in changing times. Yukako learns the tea ceremony from behind screens while her father teaches it to young men. When financial times are hard, Yukako teaches the ceremony to other women. The story line is actually not that important, the things that drew me to this book were the descriptions of the richly textured life in Japan - the relationships, the class system, the custom, the dress, the food, the bathing, everything. For example, I had no idea that when kimonos were cleaned, they were first dismantled, then washed, then sown back together. Households actually had seamstresses just for that purpose. Unsurprisingly, the arranged marriages often were not very happy ones, but this book gave me a more in depth sense of those and the relationship between men and women. Since interaction between the sexes was so limited, it created a tight knit female community. The Western influences leads to more options for the women, not only in dress, but in schooling and work.

It was fascinating to watch this Western girl adapt, learn the language, and latch on to this family - so giving us an insider's glimpse into the Japanese world, but with Western understanding. I have to admit, I never did fully understand the importance of the tea ceremony - something you had to train for years to do correctly with subtleties that go way beyond my perceptual abilities. Maybe if I think of it as an ultimate piece of classical performance art. Otherwise it is hard to imagine the level of luxury that has to be obtained to spend that much time and focus on this choreographed social gathering. I'll have to talk to a Japanese expert to understand this more fully. But the book itself made me feel great - I learned about another piece of the world and a specific time period, I enjoyed Urako and many of the characters created by Ellis Avery, and the storyline too was fulfilling in ways I can't describe without giving too much away.

This is Ellis Avery's first novel, and as Emily Barton wrote for the LA Times: "a novel that, like the tea ceremony itself, provides true pleasure to the intellect and all the senses."

Blue Smoke by Nora Roberts (2005)

Now this is the Nora Roberts I like and respect. This was a cross between Roberts' normal romances and her J.D. Robb books with tough cop Eve. This time the heroine Reena Hale works for the arson unit and is trained as a firewoman. The setting is Baltimore, and since I was just there for a conference this spring, I had been to Little Italy and recognized some of the places mentioned in the book. We see Reena from childhood, when she is fascinated by the fire that destroys her parents' restaurant. I loved her close knit family and cozy family business. The other unusual aspect of this book was that we got a realistic view of the various semi-serious relationships Reena has throughout her life. Usually romances just have the two people meet, and it seems that there is nothing in their past, they find the one and only. Now this lady has a lot of fires in her life - not just as part of her job, but as part of her life. It takes her a while to put it all together that they are connected, but the trip through her life is worth following. I had no idea what it takes to become a specialist in arson - and it is amazing how much they can tell about the origins of a fire. It is also scary to see the other side - how an arsenist can set up a destructive blaze. I also liked Bo Goodnight - a great carpenter, who once saw Reena at a party many years ago and was smitten by her.

Zen and the Art of Motercycle Maintenance by Robert Pirsig (1974)

I had the urge to reread this and was glad I did. I read it soon after it came out - it was already a cult classic back then. I am amazed at how philosophical I was in my youth. I know it influenced my thinking. I learned to appreciate back roads, I know I had plans to learn to fix my own car after this book, though I only got as far as oil changes. It is the ultimate road trip book and I should have been listening to it on a long trip this time - because I would be in tune with his travel story, and I would have had more time to process his philosophy. Trying to get into the proper mood on short trips around town did not work, so I let some of the philosophy just pass me by. He discussed things like classical and romantic thinking, truth, insanity, rhetoric, aesthetics. Sometimes he equated Zen with boredom. I liked his take on "gumption", a word that also appeared in the movie The Holiday. I was riveted by his discussion of the academic world - academic freedom, the importance of reason, grading... I will just have to read or listen to it again sometime. I was uncomfortable with the author's son on the trip, who is watching his father getting so deep into thought, he is almost losing it, and the trip becomes quite boring with just day after day on the road, without interesting stops. Having traveled with a child all over the US, I know the importance of keeping him engaged.

After reading the book I was wondering what had happened to the author Robert Pirsig, and to find out if the book was really autobiographical, whether he really had gone insane. My library sources told me that he had written another book and gotten all sorts of awards, but nothing was said about what he had done for the last 20 years. A link from the Wikipedia filled in the blanks - someone had created a timeline for Persig - where he was when, including the time he was hospitalized. The timeline also followed the life of his son Chris, who traveled with him and was killed outside a Zen center in 1979. Pirsig has kept writing and living in different parts of the world. The last few years are listed as "living very privately," which I totally understand and respect.

Rebellion by Nora Roberts (1988)

I should have looked at this more closely. Roberts wrote this for Sihouette Books, so it must be one of those formulaic historical romances. Set in Scotland of 1745 with the Scottish heroine Serena MacGregor hating all the English, even her brother's friend Brigham Langston, though he helps the Scottish rebels. You know the rest - they fall in love and live happily ever after.

This would have been a wonderful opportunity to explain this historical time and the disagreement between the English and Scotts, but instead there is just the romance floating though this unexplained hatered. There were a few interesting parts for me - the herbal healer, and the way the "rebellion" was organized. They had to convince the farmers to fight, though the chances of survival and/or winning were small. I was glad to see that many were reluctant to go fight against the larger English force. The military strategy also was not well thought out. For some reason military strategy has caught my attention in a few books over the past few years - Churchill's brilliance as a tactician, Hitler's learning military strategy as a child organizing his schoolmates, good behind the scenes planning by Mary, Queen of Scotts (I think) and the poor planning of timing and supplies by one of the English kings in Philippa Gregory's book.

Magyk by Angie Sage (2005)

Now here's a wonderful fantasy book for young adults (i.e. the main characters are kids and nothing too too awful happens.) Yes we have a new world, new social structure of wizards and non-wizards, some weird creatures, but they are introduced slowly, so we can get used to them and get to like them or hate them, depending on whether they were aligned with good or bad guys. Jenna grows up in the Heap family of wizards, the only girl amongst 6 boys. Boy 412 grows up in the army. My only slight complaint was the use of two very well know terms from the Harry Potter series: Bogart and Trelawny. Otherwise, I can't wait to read the next one, and I'll have to wait for the release of the third.

Arabat by Clive Barker (2002)

Sounded interesting, but I had little tolerance for things I don't like in reading, so I quit this one after a few chapters. Clive Barker is usually a mystery writer, I think. I did not like his forray into young adult fantasy. The names all sounded too cutsy, the situations too contrived - they always are, but this one just got on my nerves.

Castle in the Forest by Norman Mailer (2007)

The premise was great, and I had never read anything by Mailer, so I thought I would try this. Mailer looks at Hitler's youth and family in a fictional story, hoping to explain what made him so evil. The narrator is non other than a minion of Satan. So far so good and from a few things I mentioned to a friend who has studied Hitler and the Holocaust, looks like Mailer covered a lot of the controversies around Hitler's childhood and family - so it was probably well researched. What really got to me was Mailer's sense of the role Satan and his minions have played in historical events. He has his own elaborate definition of what is evil and how people get drawn into being Satan's pawns, and what the relationship is with God. It is not a Christian definition, but his own. I can respect that, but it made no sense to my ethical constructs and didn't further my understanding of evil - a concept I have struggled with at different times in my life. This didn't help. The historical figures got so tedious, that I lost interest in what happened to them and gave up on the book about three fourths of the way through.

I was interested in the concept of incest brought up in the very beginning. I never thought of it, but the close proximity of family members in those days, often sharing rooms and beds, could have easily have led to incestual relationships. I'm sure this is covered in sexual histories, I just haven't read any.

I was also fascinated in the beginning about the detailed descriptions of bee-keeping, one of the endeavors Hitler's dad takes on, but then it just got to be too much. Since I was listening, I couldn't flip past the pages on this.

Firebirds Rising, edited by Sharyn November (2006)

It's been a long time since I've read an anthology, especially one of fantasy and science fiction. I was lead to this by a middle school student I know, who was looking for information on Tamora Pierce and Angie Sage. Tamora had a short story in this. I found myself liking most of the stories I read, but surprisingly did not like the one about librarians - In the House of the Seven Libraryians by Ellen Klages, seven librarians stay behind when the library moves to a new, modern building. They keep up their work even without any readers, and occasional new books appear, like the Harry Potter books, but they continue living in the old library style. I still love the physical book and like to hold them and read them (and buy and keep them!) But librarianship has moved way beyond that, and this story felt to retro, mourning the passing of the old ways.

Some authors were known to me, like Sharon Shinn - in her alternative world, where they celebrate Wintermoons. I know I read a whole series by Patrica McKillip a long time agao. Tanith Lee, Alan Dean Foster, Charles de Lint, are names I recognize from years ago. But the most interesting stories came from the writers I didn't know - Tamora Pierce, Alison Goodman, Kara Dalkey.

Six Mornings on Sanibel by Charles Sobczak (1999)

Picked this up on Sanibel Island during Spring Break. Nice gentle, feel-good book on why people move to Sanibel, or spend time there, leaving their hectic lives behind.

Maggie Darling by James Howard Kunstler (2004)

This "modern romance" was given to me by my friend Sniedze - just for the fun of it. Maggie Darling (yes, that is her last name) is a Martha Stewart type, whose world starts falling apart, but whenever she needs to calm herself, she starts making lists. She has a perfect house, impeccable parties, glorious garden - it's just her relationships with people that leave a lot to be desired. It was kind of fun. I was totally bored by the details about food - none of it sounded tasty to me. She drank a lot, mostly expensive rare wines and scotch - one way to deal with problems. I never liked Martha Stewart until she went to jail - then she became more human and likable. I never really got to like Maggie Darling, but I did like the man she finally ends up with. I also liked some of the settings - the over the top 747 that used to belong to an Arab sheik, the film set in Vienna - where there is so much waiting around, that people get bored. I didn't mind her fling with the rock & movie star, and liked it when she knew when to call it quits. The calamities were definitely contrived - husband, son, best friend, etc. but it was basically a fun read. The interesting thing about the author Kunstler, is that he writes for the New York Times Sunday Magazine and op-ed page, and has written much more serious books.