Bitter is the New Black by Jen Lancaster

This book was funny and entertaining. I recognized my own inner voice in her writing. I'm a seriously sarcastic person, even a smart-ass. So her foot notes of her thoughts throughout the whole book were hilarious and identifiable. It's a light read and thoroughly enjoyable. I'm going to pick up her other books, Such a Pretty Fat and Bright Lights Big Ass. She has a really funny blog, too: http://www.jennsylvania.com/.

The Lost Ravioli Recipes of Hoboken by Laura Schenone

I've fallen a little behind on my book blog. I finished this book about a month ago. It's actually non-fiction, which I don't read that much. But it was engaging. And I sort of understood her crazy infatuation with getting the perfect, authentic, Genoa Ravioli. She's searching for her great grandmother's, who immigrated from Liguria, Italy (that's the northwestern, mountainous region just outside of Genoa), ravioli recipe. But she discovers it has philidelphia cream cheese in it, which of course they didn't have in Italy back then. This takes her on several trips to Liguria, trying to find the perfect, authentic recipe. It's not just the recipe she's after, but her heritage. Something that connects her to a longer past, and something she can had down to her kids. About discovering family secrets, and the story of Italian assimilation. And pasta - who knew it had such a history. It's an art all to itself. I admire that she was able to learn, through ALLOT of practice, to roll it out with a pin instead of using a pasta machine. It was just a lovely story.

The Chili Queen by Sandra Dallas

What can I say? I love Sandra Dallas. She tells a good story. Not exactly "high literature" but still good for the sole. Her books are ones that you don't want to put down, and look forward to getting back to. During the day, while I'm changing diapers, cleaning up after kids, doing laundry, I look forward to bedtime so I can curl up in my bed and read - escape.

Reading Group Guide Questions

1. Which of Addie’s thoughts and/or actions revealed her true character early in the book?

2. Was your initial impression of Addie consistent with your final impression?

3. When did you first suspect Emma was not all she appeared to be?

4. Did Emma make the only choices possible for her or could you envision other courses of action?

5. Who do you believe to be the true villain of the story?

6. Which character did you most want to find peace and happiness?

7. Were there any clues to Welcome’s true identity early in the story? 8. Were the women in the novel particularly subject to creating masks and facades for themselves? Why or why not?

The Zoo Keepers Wife by Diane Ackerman

I love how this book wove history and the life sciences into the "memoir" of Antonina Zabinski". She based it on Antonina's and Jan's (her husband) diaries, and used several accounts of others who survived the war in Warsaw, Poland. The Nazi's fascination with blood lines and, seemingly contradictory, ecology, make this even more intriguing. We observe animal nature in this story, not just of the animals they cared for and observed in the zoo (and in their home), but of people. The brutality and zeal of the Nazi's, and the Jewish ghetto where people were reduced to simple animal survival, make the risks that people like Jan & Antonina seem so incredible. They risked their lives - their family - to do what was right. Before the war, there was a sense of order and rhythm to life that was magnified by the creatures around her. Antonina writes in her journal of the morning ritual of the various animals waking, starting their day with screeches, growls and roars; of the caretakers feeding the animals, gardeners tending to the grounds, and the people visiting. When the Germans began the bombing of Warsaw, all order was lost.

The Zoo kept the only breeding record for the forest bison, a buffalo native to Poland's Bialoweski Forest, a sort of temperate wilderness. Lutz Heck, zoo keeper for the Berlin Zoo, came and took all of the bison and any other animal of significance. Many of the animals died in the bombing, and others escaped. The only way they were able to hang on to the zoo at all, was by raising pork for the Germans (which Jan often poisoned), and then later a fur farm. The zoo, with it's many comings & goings, and right next to a German arms depot, became a safe house to hide Jews until they could find a more permanent place to go to.

I guess I find that this story touches my heart all the more, because it's written with such respect of life. The book ends in an epilogue, with the forest bison, eventually returned, snorting in the Bialoweski, along with the little wild horses, which were the closest ancient relative to those that cavemen painted on walls. The genes that those animals carry continue on today. Just like those of the millions of Jews and poles that were killed during the war, carry on in the descendants of those that survived, some even from the help of Jan & Antonina.

The Woman Warrior: Memoirs of a Girlhood Among Ghosts by Maxine Hong Kingston

This was an eeire memoir. I love Chinese ghost stories and legends. Alot of chinese are very superstitious, and ghosts are just part of life (or afterlife?), and it's just accepted that they exist. In this book, the author takes the idea of ghosts a little further, to explain her family's history.

There's the aunt no one talks about, who commited suicide in the village well with her newborn baby. The author talks about her, and her mother does not want her too, it's taboo. She says her mother cut her tongue as a baby too free her tongue, yet tells her to be silent. It's just one of many conflicting things that she has to deal with, walking between her ancient chinese culture and the alien new american culture. She's rebellious, but not in the typical way we think. Just as she asks questions about taboo subjects, she refused to talk in american school, her way to have some control and rebel.

She creates her woman warrior, which is a theme that is woven throughout the short stories. There's a legend of a girl child who is taken by a bird to an old couple who train her to be a powerful warrior. She then returns and saves her village and others against powerful warlords and rulers. The author admires this woman, yet it seems strange at first because she is so opposite of this legendary warrior. But she has a quiet resolve and fierceness, that does eventually come through.

The Tale of Murasaki by Liza Dalby

This is one of those books that is enjoyed on an almost purely intellectual level. There's not a whole lot of emotional attachment to Murasaki. I liked her, but she was so introspective and withdrawn. It was a fascinating tale though, and I learned alot about early Japan, and how it took alot of it's artistic and learning from the chinese, who at that time considered Japan a backwater kind of place. The time that Murasaki lived was sort of a renaisance for Japan, and I enjoyed learning about imperial and aristocratic life. There really wasn't much insight as to how the common people lived, but that wasn't the point; it was to imagine how a woman wrote one of the earliest novels at a time when it was improper to even view the face of a nobel woman, let alone converse with one if you were a man.

About the Book:
In eleventh-century Japan, Murasaki Shikibu gave her readers The Tale of Genji, what many have called the world's first novel. Today, Liza Dalby gives her readers The Tale of Murasaki, a brilliant, vividly imagined "diary" of Murasaki. Through this device, Dalby artfully brings to life not only Murasaki and her writing, but also the splendor and scandal of court life during the Heian period of Japan. The re-creation of Murasaki's life is a dazzling accomplishment, bursting with the colors, fashion, and poetry of court life, the natural landscape of Japan, and the rites and rituals of Buddhism. We hope the questions, discussion topics, and author biography that follow enhance your group's reading of this exotic excursion into ancient Japanese cultural history through the story of a fascinating and complex woman.

Murasaki's adolescence was a lonely one, punctuated by loss. Her mother died when she was fifteen, her sister is "slow-witted," and her brother is a dolt. Murasaki begins writing stories of Genji, the "Shining Prince," at first to entertain her friends. But one by one, her friends exit her life to live their own. Then her father, a mid-ranking court poet and Chinese scholar, is posted to the remote province of Echizen to deal with relations with the Chinese, and her family moves. In her isolation, Murasaki's fictional Genji becomes her closest companion, and her imagination sustains her. During her marriage to a high court official, Murasaki is fascinated by her husband's tales of the politics and sexual intrigue of court life--he has access to the inner courts that her father never did. Her imagination refueled, Murasaki continues to write Genji stories. Word of her stories makes its way to the court, and the powerful, reigning regent, Michinaga, requests that Murasaki begin court service to regale his daughter, the empress, with her stories. Finally attaining her dream, Murasaki's life in the inner courts begins, and she experiences firsthand the glory, sexual machinations, and severity of cloistered court life, all the while writing more of Genji's adventures for her empress.

For Discussion:

1) Katako describes her mother's fiction as "a perverse child. Once created, it makes its own way without apology, brooking no influence, making friends and enemies on its own" [p. 2]. And Murasaki agrees in her conclusion that she had been "deluded . . . into thinking I could shape reality by my writing. . . . Reality was neither the subject nor object of the tales, for Genji created his own reality"[pp. 397Ð98]. Do Katako's and Murasaki's observations, in fact, describe what Dalby herself is doing in re-creating Murasaki's life and her world through the art of historical fiction? How is that different than writing the fictional The Tale of Genji?

2) Why does Dalby choose to begin the book with Katako's letter to her daughter? In what other ways does the theme of one person acting as a scribe in order to preserve the present for posterity run throughout the book? In what other instances, and in what manner, do people in Murasaki's world communicate on behalf of one another?

3) A novel is clearly not a "pile of poems with a fragile thread of story holding them together," as Murasaki, the young writer, learns [p. 34]. In Murasaki's experience, how does the process of writing a novel compare to composing poetry? What about to the other forms of written expression appearing in the novel, i.e., writing lists, "pillow books," diaries or "scribbling" to record current events? According to Murasaki, is there a hierarchy of written forms of expression?

4) Upon her entrance to court life, she finds "the sacred presence of the emperor and empress was overwhelming" [p. 248]. Does Murasaki discover, as Ruri had warned her, that, in fact, "life at court conceals a constant tension between ideas of how things are supposed to be and how they are" [p. 50]? Do Murasaki's views toward court change over her time of service? Is her advice to her daughter and her decision to prepare her for court service a surprise [pp. 358Ð59]? In comparing herself to Genji's "pretend" son, Kaoru, who "understood the dissatisfaction of getting what you think you want" [p. 389], is Murasaki referring to her disappointment in court life? Are there other aspects of Murasaki's life that turned out differently than the way she anticipated?

5) Dalby often employs elaborate metaphors to describe the scenes before Murasaki. For example, she describes one of the many ceremonies following the prince's birth as follows: "The embroidery was all in silver, and the seams of our trains were outlined in silver thread stitched together so thickly it looked like braid. Silver foil was inlaid into patterns in the ribs of the fans. When everyone was assembled, it was like looking at snow-clad mountains by the light of a clear moon--almost blinding, as if the room had been hung with mirrors" [p. 320]. How does this striking visual image act as a metaphor to convey the intricate relationship between Murasaki and nature? What other literary devices does Dalby employ to convey the visual spectacle or to evoke mood? What images from the novel are most vivid for you?

6) In musing over Michinaga's opinions of the great poets of the time, Kinto and Kazan, Murasaki comments, "Father's most ancient texts on Chinese poetics . . . insist the origin of the poetic impulse must lie in nature rather than purposeful art. 'Insect carving' was how one scholar derided the overly crafted work of his contemporaries" [p. 261]. Does this distinction between "good" and "bad" poetry accurately capture the aesthetic so highly esteemed in Murasaki's Japan?

7) Observing the farmers in the provinces practice their religious rituals, Murasaki wonders, "Could it be that even the royal court followed customs that originated in the sacred mud of the rice paddies?" [p. 147]. What other events or descriptions does Dalby use to illustrate how life "above the clouds" is different from "real life"--below the clouds?

8) Katako writes that the religious leader Genshin "preached the way for all souls, even women, to be saved directly by the mercy of Amida Buddha" [p. 400]. The assumption behind this statement, and eleventh-century Buddhist culture, is that a woman's soul is usually not worthy of salvation, by virtue of her gender. How else does Dalby capture this inferior, at times almost nonexistent, status of women in eleventh-century Japan? What influence on society do the women in The Tale of Murasaki have, if any?

9) What examples of the sexual mores of the time can you glean from the novel? How would you compare and contrast these practices, as portrayed in The Tale of Murasaki, to those of contemporary Western society?

10) Compare and contrast Murasaki's relationships with women to her relationships with men. Which are more nurturing emotionally? Intellectually? Which better prepare her for society? How do each of her relationships help her shape the development of Genji's character? Does Murasaki learn to like men--or does she just accept that, "in the end, I suppose we always have to take it" [p. 327]?

11) According to The New York Times review of The Tale of Murasaki, Dalby invented Murasaki's relationship with Ming-gwok in order to "broaden her horizons and introduce her to love."* Do you agree that this was Dalby's purpose?

12)If you have not read The Tale of Genji, how would you imagine his character based upon The Tale of Murasaki? Is he Murasaki's "Shining Prince" or her alter ego? An imaginary friend or ideal lover? How does Genji reflect Michinaga's character? What are his strengths and weaknesses [see pp. 151, 294Ð96, 388]? At what points do Murasaki's own experiences coincide with or diverge from those of Genji? What is her relationship with him, and how does it change over the course of the novel?

13) Murasaki's father reacts to Genji's infatuation with Yugao by asking: "'Why would a man like Genji neglect a lady of beauty and refinement for this tramp?'" And Murasaki thinks, "I had to smile. Father really was different from ordinary men, and I loved him for it" [p. 231]. What examples can you find of Tametoki being in fact "different" from the other men in Murasaki's life? In what ways is he the same? Is he admirable or foolish or both?

14) How are the Chinese compared and contrasted with the Japanese in the novel? For example, Murasaki is "struck by the different way Chinese and Japanese view [seasonal changes]. . . . The Chinese regarded fireflies as born from fallen vegetation which rots in the humid heat, yet there was no emotion in that observation" [p. 153]. And later, she is "humbled" when Ming-gwok tells her that "the Chinese emperor had an entire bureau of learned men devoted to studying the stars. . . . We Japanese have no idea of these things" [p. 164]. Why do you think that Dalby might have included these and other comparisons between the two races in her novel?

15) What is the significance of Dalby's creating "The Lost Last Chapter of Murasaki's The Tale of Genji" as the epilogue for her novel? Is Ukifune supposed to be symbolic of Murasaki in her last years--afflicted by blindness that finally brings her peace? Is there a difference in style between the last chapter and the rest of the novel?

16)When the serving ladies mock Murasaki for reading Chinese books she rather brashly thinks, "Yes, that's what is always said, but I've never heard of anyone living longer simply because of observing such prohibitions!" [p. 356]. Is Murasaki a woman ahead of her times, or very much a product of her times? Is she rebellious in other aspects of her life?

17) Dalby writes in the Acknowledgments that she "reverse-engineered" The The Tale of Genji into her novel. How does she do this? How is the creative- writing process explored in the novel? Is The Tale of Murasaki primarily a novel about the act of writing?

18) Like Murasaki, Dalby includes a cast of characters at the beginning of The Tale of Murasaki. Murasaki writes of her characters: "Originally I had thought of Genji as the center of this universe of women. Later, as the extended mansion took shape in my mind, I realized that the ladies themselves were of far more interest to me" [p. 199]. Does Murasaki ever become less than the central character in Dalby's novel? How does Dalby develop the other characters in the novel? Are they all secondary to Murasaki, important only in as much as they affect Murasaki, or can any stand on their own?

19) How do the many examples of the man-made order (court ranking, calendar, the Chinese calendar's Monthly Ordinance, the composed garden, the number of layers of the kimonos) enable eleventh-century Japanese society to survive and flourish in the face of the harshness and unpredictability of nature? How is Murasaki's life shaped by these two opposing forces?