A literary endeavor

I finished reading "Hunger," by Lan Samantha Chang on Sunday marking the completion of resolution No. 1 to read 1o books this year. The short story collection by Chang includes stories that emphasize the isolation of the immigrant experience - from other colleagues, from neighbors and even from their own children. My favorite story was the title one, "Hunger," about a woman, her husband and her two daughters. The story is the longest one in the book, coming in at just over 100 pages, but her characters are as developed as if it were a full-length novel. The stories struck a chord with me as they stressed how the same people can experience the same things in such a different way. Though I am a second generation American, the stories did make me wonder what it was like for my grandfather when he arrived from Italy speaking no English, or for my father's parents who immigrated from Mexico as children. Though Chang's story is about Chinese immigrants, it seems that there would be some similarities to the experiences.

Book No. 9 was "Lullaby" by Chuck Palahniuk. The author is perhaps best known for writing "Fight Club," which was adapted into a pretty cool movie with Edward Norton and Brad Pitt. I'd never read any of his stuff, but I'd been warned that is writing is pretty dark. "Lullaby" is about a journalist who is assigned to write a series on crib death. As he goes to each crime scene, he finds an unusual connection at each of the homes. They all have a book of lullabies and the books are open to the same page. Little by little, the author reveals that the journalist knows has seen the book before - the night his own daughter and wife died. It's a culling spell - a poem that has the power to kill off those who hear it. The crux of the story is what the journalist chooses to do about it - use it to eliminate anyone who annoys him or rid the world of all the copies. In Palahniuk's world, everything is pretty complicated. The writing style was easy to read and the characters were well developed, but the actions of the characters is far from pleasant.

Book No. 8 was "Click," which has multiple authors. Proceeds from the book all went to Amnesty International, but the only reason I was drawn to the book is that some of the chapters were written by some of my favorite authors, including Nick Hornby and Roddy Doyle. The book has 10 authors who each write one chapter of the book. The book starts out focused on Maggie and Jason, two American kids who have just lost their grandfather. But from there the book scans continents and decades. My favorite chapters were those by Hornby and Doyle, whose writing in the chapters was similar to their writing in books I've written by them. I didn't like some of the chapters at the end, including one by Gregory Maguire, who is known for rewriting classic fairytales such as his novel "Wicked." Those chapters went a little too far into the realm of sci-fi for me and they didn't seem to fit with the rest of the book. Most of the chapters, however, felt surprisingly cohesive. At the least, the book is an interesting experiment.

Book No. was "Bog Child" by Siobhan Dowd. I was drawn to those book, which is a young adult novel, because it was set Northern Ireland. I studied there when I was in college and I'm always interested in reading books or seeing movies based on the emerald isle. The novel is set during the Troubles, the era in Northern Ireland with the most violence. I've read a lot about the Troubles, but its hard to whittled down into a simple explanation. That is one of the problems with Dowd's book - anyone who doesn't know about it might be a little lost with the book. The main character is Fergus, a high school student who is studying for his A levels, the British test students take to get into college. He wants to be a doctor and get away from his small village. More than anything he wants to get away from the cause his older brother has embraced. His brother is a member of the Irish Republican Army, a radical group that for many years tried to fight for independence for Northern Ireland, which was under rule of Great Britain. His brother is in prison on a hunger strike. The book focuses less on the political strife, however, than on Fergus' studying for his A levels, running and falling for a girl who visits his village for the summer. The story was a little bit too simple, but then again it was written for young adults.

Now that I've finished my goal for the books, I can start tackling the stack of "New Yorkers" that have backed up - all the way back to June.

A trip to Sunny San Diego

Thanksgiving is just past and that's a sign that 2010 is winding down. That also means my deadline to finish up my 19 resolutions is fast approaching. But unlike the news business where missing a deadline means the paper not getting out on time, life is a much more flexible endeavor.

I have actually finished quite a few of the resolutions and I am close to finishing some of them, though I haven't been that diligent about reporting on them. And I will continue to work on some of the resolutions I have completed, but for now here is a recap of one that is done.

I took a trip somewhere other than Indiana (Resolution No. 5). Last week I took some time off work to head to San Diego for my cousin's graduation from Marine boot camp. My parents and I went down a couple days in advance so we could stroll around the San Diego Historical Park, visit the San Diego Zoo and eat out at a few good restaurants. For anyone heading to Old Town San Diego, I recommend the Old Town Mining Company, which recently opened. I had an awesome burger there as well as a tasty vanilla wafer (a twist on the classic white Russian made with vanilla vodka.) The service was good and the meal was reasonably priced. Avoid the Acapulco restaurant. The mojito was made with Sierra Mist, instead of real lime juice, the service was slow and the food was just so-so.

The biggest stress of the trip was renting a mid-size SUV. I drive a Saturn, which is not a big car. It doesn't take up a lot of space. It's easy to navigate into parking spaces. The Suzuki Vitara I rented from Budget had the benefit of being high off the ground so I could see easily, but I also had no feel for how much space I actually needed to switch lanes or park it. To exacerbate things, I planned to use the GPS feature on my MyTouch phone during the trip. But San Diego roads around downtown and Old Town are just weird. The GPS kept giving us strange directions and heading us in circles. Luckily, the amount of driving on the trip was limited, and as for parking, I just parked far away from other cars.

The main purpose of the trip, however, was to see my cousin graduate from Marine boot camp so much of the trip was spent at the Marine Recruit Depot. It was great to see my younger cousin, for whom I started babysitting when he was only four months old and I was 12, look so grown up and mature. It was a busy, and tiring trip, but worth it.