East Wind Melts the Ice

I love this book! I borrowed Liza Dalby’s East Wind Mets Ice from the University library via interlibrary loan because my local public libraries do not own this item (sigh!) After reading the first two chapters, I realized that it is the book I need to buy a copy and add to my personal library.

This book is written in luminous prose, divided into 72 chapters. The books brings the readers enlightening stories of author’s person life in Kyoto Japan, as the first non-Japanese Geisha; her life as a gardener in Northern California. I also consider this book as a memoir. The 72 chapters explores lives between the east and west cultures.

It is a wonderful book.

I don't like this book.

A nursing student came to the desk and asked me whether I read Don Piper’s 90 Minutes in Heaven. She was disappointed when I told her I haven’t. So I picked the book at the local public library.

I would say this book is bout Don’s life story rather than the actual events/accident. The title of this book does not match what it is about. I disagree with some book reviewers claim, “it is an inspiring story.” I personally do not like this book. - so pick up this book and see what you think.

A documentary film: Unmistaken Child

Having seen the Seven Years in Tibet and Kundun, I picked up this film, Unmistaken Child at the library. This documentary film is about the search for a reincarnated Lama in Central Asia, Nepal. I certainly do not understand the non-scientific process of the divination, searching and verification. But I do enjoy the traveling scenes of mountains, hills, fields, rivers, ordinary people and their tradition culture in the far-reached world.

FREE research database!! - ResearchGate

WOW!! I accidentially found out this free of charge databases when I assisted a graduate student this afternoon.

http://www.researchgate.net/

I discovered a GREAT reference book! - William Lawrence Neuman's Social Research Method

Recently I have been reading social research method books. All the theoretical research ad methodology is “hard information” – it is very complex and sometimes hard to “digest.” There is one book which keeps me focus is William Lawrence Neuman’s Social Research Method: Qualitative and Quantitative Approaches. This book is very informative, of course involves many conceptual theories. Yet it is VERY well-written and well- organized. It presents a comprehensive and balanced introduction to qualitative and quantitative approaches to social research with examples. The examples are GREAT! It clarifies and explains the social sciences research method and how to plan and conduct research.

It is a MUST-READ reference book for graduate students.

Film: Make Way for Tomorrow

Generally speaking I do not like Black and White movies simply because those films are usually boring and very poor quality of pictures and plots. But I was "captured" by Make Way for Tomorrow.

It is a Depression-era film which depicts the frustrations of family, aging, and the generation gap. I found there are two major messages from this film:

(1) Women were NOT allowed to drink at the bars not even in big cities such as Chicago.
(2) Save when you were young.

It is a great film. It caught my attention throughout the movie.

Book: The Problem with Chickens

When the ladies in a small remote village in Iceland do not have any eggs to cook, they decided to raise chickens. When the chickens stopped laying eggs, they come up with an unusual solution.

I love this book not because of its beautiful Icelandic drawings; not because of the features of Icelandic culture and traditions. I am so glad that the book shows how clever chickens can be! – “The chickens started acting like ladies”! – That is exactly what my pet chicken “Pumpkin” does everyday. She acts like us.

A very delightful read! - Wonderful and creative illustrations

Book: I'll Never Be French - Je ne serai jamais français

The title of this book caught my attention when I was looking for French book via the local library's OPAC. Sure enough, I left the library with this book in my arm.

Mark greenside, a 40-something years old American moved to a small village on the coast of Brittany in summer 1991. At the end of the summer he was so attached to the France, and bought an old stone house. The book makes me laugh in the earlier chapters, for instance, the chapter about how Greenside bought milk, sugar and bread at the village store with his VERY broken French! I continued reading, and burst out laughing. I couldn't put down this book once I read because it is so funny and entertaining.

Love this book! It is a great leisure reading book - the characteristics of people, the place, the food, the American experience in France.

If you are looking for a good summer reading book, this is the one!

A loyal dog called HACHIKO (ハチ公)

A beautiful written and illustrated book! - There are so many "versions" of HACHIKO story; but I particularly like this one: Hachiko: The True Story of a Loyal Dog, written by Pamela S. Turner and illustrated by Yan Nasimbene. - this book won the Bccb Blue Ribbon Picture Book Awards.

This is a well-known old story in Japan. Professor Ueno died unexpectedly at work in April 1925, fifteen months after he bought a dog who he named Hachiko (number 8 in Japanese. indicating it is his 8th Akita). Hachiko walked with Professor Ueno to the Tokyo Shibuya-ku station (渋谷区) every morning and could be counted on like a clock to greet his owner upon return from work. After Professor Ueno passed away, Hachiko continued coming back to the station “as usual" to wait for professor Ueno's return. This continued for ten long years until Hachiko died in 1935.

A beautiful story the bond between dog and human is very touching.

Bento Box (ベントボックス) in the Heartland

"Bento Box" (ベントボックス) = roughly translates to "box lunch"

Linda Furiya's Bento Box in the Heartland: My Japanese Girlhood in Whitebread America is a book about second-generation immigrant experience. It is a candid, personal and revealing memoir about growing up at the only Japanese family in an Indiana hometown in the 1960s.

When Furiya described when she ate lunch at the school cafeteria and found her mother packed the rice balls for her lunch instead sandwich, like the rest of her classmates. I can imagine how embarrassed that moment when she opened her lunch box. Also it made her feel she was so different from her classmates. This book is full of similar selective memories.

In addition to her memories, Furiya ends each chapter with a recipe for one of her favorite meals. It makes this book "more than" a memoir.

Enjoyable and very touching!

Book about the student loan scam in the US education

Alan Collinge's The Student Loan Scam: The Most Oppressive Debt in U.S. History is a serious read. I have known that most people go to college with a student loan, except those fortunate ones who receive grant and scholarships. But if you need a loan for your education, you need to be aware the following issues:

The interest rate: Do you know the interest rates of these loans can be as high as 29.9%?

Government's involvement: Do you know the major student loan provider; Sallie Mae's fee income increased 220% between 2000 and 2005? - Congress has given banks and loan providers a "free ticket" to extract as much money from students as possible.

Lenders are allowed to take up to 25% as collection fee on defaulted loans - they make money out of the poor/needed students!

If you haven't noticed any of the above issues, PLEASE read this book beofre you take on a student loan.

An incrediable Read! - Thanking the Monkey

Karen Dawn's Thanking the Monkey makes you rethink the way animals are treated around the world. The title suggests that the author intends to bring up the issues in a playfully but seriously way. The book is full of funny and witty commentary and cartoons. I particularly loves the humorous and hilarious cartoons - make you laugh and think deeper, especially for those who are NOT vegans.

It is a well-written book about animal abuse, animal rights and animal welfare. Yes it is a comprehensive but an easy-to-read book.

The Bird, the Monkey, and the Snake in the Jungle

This book uses full-bleed illustrations to tell the adventure of a bird, a monkey and a snake - they search for a place to live in the jungle after their homes are destroyed by a rainstorm. Every morning the bird sings, the monkey wakes to eat nuts and the snake complains when the falling shells hit on his back. The story enhances with pictures on the outer margin of each right-hand page. It is a story book but it also looks like a game.

I read this book simply because it is one of my reading assignments for my children literature class! But I do love the story and the primitive-style illustrations.

Dear Miss Breed ...

A role model for librarians!

Joanne Oppenheim's Dear Miss Breed is a book about a children librarian who devoted her self to the Japanese American children and made a difference to the lives of them. Clara Breed was the children librarian at San Diego Public Library when the Japanese Americans were sent to the concentration camps in 1940s. She kept correspondence with her young incarceration library patrons. In doing so she gave the children a way of keeping connection with the “outside” (outside the camp) world. She also sent them library donated books.

This book is a collection of her letters along with articles, photographs, and other primary materials integrated by the author. As a librarian, I highly recommend this book for all librarians and future librarians to remind us the role of a librarian.

John West: The Last Goodnights: Assisting My Parents with Their Suicide

When our pets are old and sick, we would end their suffer by putting them to sleep because it is the merciful thing to do. When your parents suffer from terminal illness and unbearable pain, what would you do? Should your parents have the rights to end their lives in dignity?

In this book, John West brings up the issues in a very personal way. He honesty shares his journey to assist his own parents with their sucidies. It is NOT an easy book to read, especially for someone like me who dealt with end of life issue with my own brother.

Book: An American Soldier who spent twelve years in communist China

Why a POW of Korean soldier refused repatriation in 1953, instead spending twelve years in communist China? What on earth was he thinking?  These two questions lead me to finish Clarence Adams' book just in a few hours.

Mr Adams chose to stay in China with a hope to find educational and career opportunities not readily available in his own country - simply because he's Black. He earned a university degree and learned the language. During the Chinese Cultural Revolution, he returned to the US with his wife and two children in 1966.

It is a remarkable African-American autobiography; but it is also a book about war, the racial issues in the United States, and the life in China during the Mao's disastrous Great Leap Forward.

"All animals deserve the care and protection we give our pets"

The ways we treat the farm animals is so cruel. On factory farms turkeys are simply fattened until their wings are useless; chickens are fattened until they cannot stand up with their feet. Cows simply are fed with corn. Farm animals are raised for slaughter. Ruby Roth’s That’s Why We Don’t Eat Animals is a very first children book which teaches children that all animals have souls and emotions similar to our pets. It is a great book to teach young generation about what is happening on factory farms. This book makes a strong argument for reducing animal consumption as well as eliminating factory farms.