Save the Date: Bay Area Book Festival

June 6–7 | Downtown Berkeley | Learn more here.
 
What serendipity that the inaugural Bay Area Book Festival takes place in my home turf of Berkeley. You would suspect the first of anything to be a humble endeavor, a mere glimpse of bigger things to come, but the organizers seemingly skipped that custom, and all signs indicate an extravaganza. 300 authors will descend upon a 10-block radius of downtown Berkeley, where the streets will be charmingly renamed the likes of Literary Lane and Radical Row. I am particularly excited to spend an evening with Judy Blume (festival prep involves re-reading Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret), to hear Edan Lepucki’s talk on “Futurism, Fatalism and Climate Change,” and of course to meander and discover the yet unknown. The Festival takes place during the first weekend of June, the kick off of those invaluable summers weekends, and is sure to inspire the summer reading list and beyond. Updates to come!

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Recently Thrifted: Field Book of Insects

I purchased Field Book of Insects at the San Francisco Botanical Garden’s annual plant sale. There was a corner dedicated to used books of the nature variety, and I saw and reached for this small red volume almost immediately. The idea of collecting field books came to mind while reading Tell the Wolves I’m Home, in which the brilliant Finn Weiss keeps a bookshelf filled with them: seashells, gemstones, wildflowers, and trees. I saw this particular dedication to insects and could not resist.
 
It is written by Frank E. Lutz, Late Curator of the Department of Insect Life of the American Museum of Natural History. The original was published in 1918, and this is a revised version from 1948. Dr. Lutz explains that by doing this and that, this edition squeezes far more information into the same number of pages as prior editions. He beautifully adds, “It reminds me of a telegraphic night-letter with space left for ‘Love,’ which in this case means ‘I hope that you will find this book helpful.'”
 
Though much of the book is intended for those who are particularly enthusiastic about insects, which I am not, there are surprise gems. On human intervention in the wild: “Perhaps it would be better for us to confine our control measures to our orchards and let Nature take care of wild cherries” (p. 190). I like to keep this field book on my bookshelf within easy grasp; something instructive and beautiful to flip through during those moments when I could be swiping this way or that way on my iPhone, realizing once I look up that I’ve accomplished very little. I have no intention of becoming well-versed in entomology, as I am often found simply studying the illustrations, but paging through them leaves me in awe, and it is a feeling I hope to replicate as I keep an eye out for more of these field books.
 

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Currently Reading: All My Puny Sorrows

Having been on a classics streak for quite some time, I knew that I wanted to return to the 21st century for my next read, though I had no idea who, what, or where. I spent the first Saturday of May in Golden Gate Park, and within the first hour I had ventured outside its perimeter on the hunt for coffee. After successful completion, I breezed past and then turned back around into Green Apple Books, encountered the “Staff Picks” shelf, and was startled by this note:
 

 
In case you have trouble catching every word, this is the promise: “On average, I recommend this book to someone at least once a day. It is hands-down one of my favorite books of 2014 (and maybe in my life). I am offering as close to a money-back guarantee as you can get without actually using currency…Please, do yourself a favor and read All My Puny Sorrows.”
 
I do not remember the last time I read such an effusive book review, and I was quickly made vulnerable to its influence, as anything that anyone considers their favorite intrigues me (especially books and songs). I think of it as a shortcut education, or at least enrichment, to expose myself to something that someone else has already studied and determined to be exceptional. You learn a lot about someone by learning their favorites, and if you accumulate enough of that information from enough individuals, you start to learn a lot about people in general.
 
In Miriam Toews’ All My Puny Sorrows, Elfreida and Yolandi Von Reisen are sisters who mean the world to each other but also suffer the ultimate conflicting interest: Elfreida wants to kill herself and Yolandi wants her to live. I am only 50 pages into the book, but those pages have jumped back and forth between their childhood growing up in a Mennonite household and their adulthood, Elfreida as a world renowned pianist and Yolandi as a divorced mother of two. Elfrida, especially in childhood, is mesmerizing. She is the kind of talented, independent, brilliant, and miserable character that I love.
 
There is a scene early in the book when the elders of the Mennonite community visit the Von Reisen home to reprimand them for one thing or another. Elfreida goes into the spare bedroom next to the front door and begins to play the piano, which is not allowed in the community. She plays her obsession, Rachmaninoff’s Prelude in G Minor, Opus 23, a piece she praises for “its total respect for the importance of the chaotic ramblings of an interior monologue” (p. 18). I immediately searched for the piece online and listened to it as I continued to read. I am very eager to dive further into this book, and to discover whether someone else’s favorite will also become mine.