Japanese Fairy Tales

Returning to my neglected forums, Chef Gonzo brings another Dollar Bookstore gem: The Japanese Fairy Book.

The name of the book seems like it should have "...Tales" at the end of it, and a quick thumbing through the interior bears this out: this is a collection of Japanese folk tales and fairy tales and the essence of those scrolls that inspired the manga explosion. Manga is the mix of the traditional scroll-tale pasted onto the western's cartoon-in-panel-storytelling format.

But here we get the raw material, old fairy tales from a population that's original, if not completely bonkers...that Japanese crack me up.

This little book has pictures as well, some of which I find quite exhilarating:

The dragon king is unimpressed...

This, like the Hawai'i's history book written by her queen, is an ideal entry into my library. I enjoy my Murakami and Mishima, and maybe now I'll be able to recognize some of the basis for their wackiness.

"The Diving Bell and the Butterfly", Jean-Do Bauby

Typically I avoid the movie tie-in books. Like, once a movie gets optioned and made from a book, the book will appear with the poster and branding of the movie on the book. That's what I try to stay away from. that's the main reason I've been avoiding Cormac McCarthy's The Road at my downtown Dollar Bookstore.

But this was different.

Jean-Dominique Bauby was the editor of the French Elle Magazine when he had a stroke that resulted in Locked-In Syndrome. His brain was still intact but the only body part he had any control over was his left eye. Nurses and aides would run through a French usage alphabet and Jean-Do would blink when he wanted that letter.

That's how this book was constructed--blinks. It was reported that it took 200k+ blinks to get through it.

But reading it is a special experience. It's breezy despite the circumstances. It's fast and exciting despite the circumstances. It's reflective while not being self-pitying. I've met people who pitied themselves in much more grotesque ways who had far less to complain about than M. Bauby.

The page count is slight, and given an afternoon and a pot of coffee, this book could be finished in a sitting.

Having seen the movie and knowing the story, when I came across this copy I knew I would forego my usual aversion to movie tie-ins and snatch it up to add to my library. I'd recommend it to anyone in need of being inspired.

My favorite piece in the collection is the longest, about a rainy drive with a bitchy girlfriend to Lourdes during a sticky summer weekend. It has possibly the most visceral feelings without the destroyed family dynamic that most of the other pieces carry.

For full disclosure, Bauby died just days after it was first published in French.

"Hawaii's Story by Hawaii's Queen", Liliuokalani

The is a quintessential book for my library. I mean, this is exactly the kind of book that when I saw it I felt like it had been looking for me instead.

Where to start? I'm always on the scope for worthy history books to add to the library, and well put-together, mostly single narrative histories I really like, because the source is easily examined. This? From the person most closely related to the events possible?

I'm also interested in nearly anything tropically-island oriented, as reflected by a book I have on the Andaman Islanders. But Hawaii? One of our fifty states? This book is actually about how that went down, how the "transition" from Kingdom to American territory occurred, in painful real time.

It's about a place I've been to and enjoyed (+1); it's fascinating history (+1) about an island kingdom (+2), and how that kingdom became a state. And it was written by the last sovereign leader herself. Liliuokalani even has genealogical charts that chart the families of the tribes responsible for uniting the island into the kingdom, Kamehameha I. It has 21 large photographs in black and white.

Those 21 pages are in a  row right in the beginning, after the introduction but before page 1, a solid block of ten sheets, front and back, 1870s era royalty. The book has LVII chapters, which if you don't instantly know that's 57 don't feel bad. There are also seven appendices--those are the genealogical charts and official letters from Her Majesty Queen Liliuokalani to the President of the United States.

The book runs over 400 pages.

I never knew it existed!

Okay...where did it come from? Thankfully that info is here as well. It was printed in Australia for Mutual Publishing in Honolulu, this from the 9th printing in 2004. It was first reprinted in this same look in 1990, and originally published in 1898. How it ended up where I found it, who knows...there are a ton of Hawaii stickers and such down here.

One thing that's very cool: Liliuokalani and Kamehameha are not considered misspelled words to these word processing programs. They've survived into the digital era with their beautiful names intact. It's the least we could do.

And this history book snuggles into the library naturally.

"The Ape and the Sushi Master", Frans de Waal

This post could be subtitled "Finally Returned to the Collection." This was one of my very favorite non-fiction books for many years. I remember learning about Frans de Waal in a biology class in 2000, and then reading an article about him around that same time. It was right around the time of this book being published. I pre-ordered it on Amazon and devoured it in a few days after it arrived.

Besides having one of my favorite covers ever, the material inside I found groundbreaking.

Frans de Waal is a Dutch primatologist working mainly at Emory University in Atlanta, but has worked in many places, broadening contemporary understanding of bonobos and chimpanzees in captivity. This book covers his understanding of the definition of "culture" (behaviors learned by social interactions) and how a few non-human animals exhibit culture.

He also explores how not having other primates in North America leads to the American idea that humans are "godly miracles" and not "mostly hairless primates."

One of the guys that the Missus Gonzo befriended while studying abroad was a biology major, and she'd talked up this book and Frans in general with the guy, and when they returned, she asked if she could loan out the book to this gentleman. He was a cool enough guy, and I said yes. That was 2004, and it was also the last time I ever saw my copy of the book.

That wasn't the first time I loaned out a book or movie only to never see it again, and of course it wouldn't be the last, but I learned a valuable lesson about loaning out books I consider in my upper tier of personal favorites. Most books or movies I "loan" out, unless I stress the point vociferously, I tacitly understand that that book or movie may not return, and if that's the case, then it's better that way. Certain people need certain books or movies.

So, last summer, before breaking my leg, I found a copy just like this at Fingerprints, an indie record store with an indie book section (they shelve Robot Crickets). I wanted it, surely, but I wasn't willing to pay the asking price. On a different, more recent trip to Fingerprints (probably with copies of Robot Crickets) I noticed it had sold. Part of me was disappointed, while part of me was happy someone else would be exposed to Frans' novel ideas. Ingesting the material is good for everybody.

The other day I returned to the bookstore, noticed my own book selling a little, and saw this copy of The Ape and the Sushi Master. Obviously the asking price was in my ballpark, and I excitedly snapped it up, carrying it with me as I searched the rest of the store. It was a good day for my book collection.

"And Still We Rise", Miles Corwin

This book follows students throughout their senior year of high school while attending Crenshaw High's magnet program. The narrative follows the gifted students as they navigate their AP English course as well as their day to day dramas.

This book was assigned reading for me recently, and I have to say the material opened my eyes. Not in the way you may think. The students are from the 1996-97 senior year, which was the same year I graduated, and I too took AP English.

I'm from Sacramento originally, and the inner city environment of Los Angeles' Crenshaw High was a place I knew about only from movies like "Boyz in the 'Hood". The conversations in the classroom in the book stand in stark contrast to my own experiences in the same class during the same year. In the book, at Crenshaw, the students have animated and lively, and often combative, discussions of the material they're reading. My classes were never like that. We were all far more nervous and privileged.

That was my theory, in fact. I had an idea that when a student's environment is chaotic and they're used to confrontation, something trivial (to them maybe) like a classroom discussion could be a forum for opinions and bating in loud and forceful terms. In my environment, where grades and college plans are important both at home and school from sophomore year on. The pressure is high, which effects the nerves, which in turn effects the desire to really say anything during classroom discussions.

Just a different environment is all. I had to return this book, and it's no longer in my library.

"Eyes of the Skin", Juhani Pallasmaa

Many people have certain beliefs about the nature of "architecture". Some people think it's buildings. Some people think it's the character of a city or neighborhood. Some people think it's about the structure of back end computer programming.

In reality, "architecture" is space, as revealed to a person's senses through light. This tiny book by one of Finland's premier architects, covers just that topic.

In America, a person can be sued for calling themselves an architect when they haven't completed their licensing, and that reason alone causes the folks in the building world great consternation when hearing database admins throwing the term around casually.

This book is finally in a third printing. It consists of a series of essays covering different aspects of space and senses and how the two can interact. When it was first printed, every single copy was scooped up rather quickly, and the same can be said for the second edition. They became so scarce that copies ran for hundreds of dollars.

I know that side of it because my wife, the Missus Gonzo, has passed five of seven architectural licensing exams, and I've been around for the vast majority of her schooling. I'm the book guy, and she's the building girl, and I've been chasing this book for years.

It wasn't until this past Decemberween that I stumbled across it for sale, a third edition having been printed in the Uk. The book's dimensions are slight, eight inches by four, and not even 130 pages, the last 25 of which are bibliographical notes. It touches on many topics: a public square in rural Finland; Frank Lloyd Wright  and Le Corbusier; hill towns in southern Spain; Sartre, Plato, and Kearney...

When I saw it, brand new and reasonably priced, I knew it would make a great little gift.

For anyone interested in philosophy and space and how we experience the world, this little book is important.

"Ecotopia Emerging", Ernest Callenbach

Ernest Callenbach published in 1975 a utopian novel called Ecotopia. Set in 1999, Northern California, Oregon, and Washington have seceded from the US and formed a new country called Ecotopia. The novel has lots of up-to-date science and proved influential in the counterculture and hippie era.

In 1981, Callenbach followed it up with this novel, Ecotopia Emerging, which is a prequel to Ecotopia and sets the tone for the kind of world where the Cascade region could secede. It's mostly anti-Reagan, and uses his cadre of followers and their policies as the antagonists that prime the West Coast's attitudes.

The book was reviewed as young-adult material at the time, but wasn't reviewed too heavily. Some complaints have been that independence came too easily to the new nation. I imagine that if it wasn't an armed battle, it was probably too easy.

This book came to our collection by way of a former coworker of mine with whom I had long conversations about whales. It was hers, and somehow it became ours.