Summer Reading Suggestions

Looking for a summer reading suggestion? How about Dave Zobel's The Science of  TV's the Big Bang Theory: Explanations Even Penny Would Understand? Zobel explains the scientific principles featured in conversations on the #1 most popular scripted television show.

And if that isn't a reason to read it, how about this? There's a poem in it, and it's by me. How did that happen, you wonder? Well, I'm a Caltech alum. Really. I have a degree from there. Really. See page 91-2, where you can read the poem "In Praise of Imperfect Love" from The Insomniac's Weather Report. Really.

And if that book isn't entirely up your alley, how about Tracy Slater's The Good Shufu: Finding Love, Self, and Home on the Far Side of the World. This one's about an academic from Boston who falls in love with a Japanese salaryman and ends up moving to Osaka to marry him. Not only is this book written by a charming narrator, but it also includes information on coping with infertility in a foreign country.

Guess what? I'm in this book too. Really. Tracy is one of my closest friends in Japan. But that doesn't mean I'm recommending her book solely out of loyalty. If you don't believe me, believe Barnes & Noble who named The Good Shufu a Discover Great New Writers for Summer 2015 pick! Really.

Return of Four Stories Japan!

For all you folks living in Kansai (that's western Japan for the rest of you), Four Stories Japan returns this weekend. Four Stories is a prose reading event featuring four different writers each time, and hosted by the inimitable Tracy Slater (and held regularly in Boston, semi-regularly in Osaka/Tokyo).

The readings this weekend are:

Amy Chavez, columnist for The Japan Times since 1997 and author of the books Japan, Funny Side Up and Running the Shikoku Pilgrimage: 900 miles to enlightenment

Marc Kaufman, lecturer at Tokyo's Sophia University and fiction and nonfiction writer with work in Narrative Magazine and more

Peter Mallett, university professor and freelance writer on classical music and the arts, former arts editor of Kansai Time Out, publisher and editor of Artspace, and author of the novel-in-process Appassionata

Tracy Slater, Four Stories founder and author of the book The Good Shufu: A Wife in Search of a Life Between East and West, forthcoming from Penguin's Putnam and Berkley imprints

The readings will be held at a different venue from in that past, so click on the link above to get information and directions about that. It'll be Saturday, June 29th, beginning at 5 pm, at Café Absinthe in Osaka.

The link will also lead you to MP3s from past readings in both Osaka, Tokyo, and Boston. Check it out!

What's Neat on the Net

Cool things on the internet:

1. The entire Harvard Classics series online. We had two bookshelves devoted to this series in our home when I was growing up. It went with the oldest sister when she got married. Now all of us can have it, without dedicating the physical space (sort of want to say to my older sister, nyah nyah na nyah nyah....)

2. Cornell University's natural sound archive--largest in the world--online. Listen to loons, wolves, rain forest ambient sound, almost any natural sound you can think of.

3. My good friend Tracy Slater recently got a book deal with Putnam for her memoir about life as an American woman married to a Japanese man, going through infertility treatments in Japan, along with all the other adjustment one has to make to live abroad. She blogs about it at The Good Shufu.

4. A great interview with poet Sarah J. Sloat, poet and expat in Germany, about chapbooks and homesickness, at Laura Madeline Wiseman's blog. I'm a big fan of Sloat's poetry, and of chapbooks, and a fellow sufferer of homesickness, so if you've an interest in any of those topics, be sure to check out the interview.

5. And from Mental Floss, a list of 17 vowel-free words (or should we say vowel-less?--I once witnessed a debate over the use of childless vs. childfree and now always think of the options and their implications) you can use in boardgames such as Scrabble and Words With Friends. Thanks to my sister Janee for alerting me to this useful list.

6. An interview with poet Eric Pankey at the Milkweed Editions blog, about his new book Trace. At the bottom of the interview is a link where you can read quite a selection of poems from the new book, out from Milkweed Editions this year. From the interviews: "I see poems as speculative spaces and, in such a place, I find myself free to be full of questions, full of doubt."

Hurrah for Friends

My friends are up to amazing things.

First, my friend Tracy Slater runs a reading series in Boston and also Osaka/Tokyo called Four Stories. It has been nominated by the Boston Phoenix for the best storytelling series in Boston, so vote for Four Stories, if you are so inclined. You can hear some of the readings (including a few of mine) by downloading MP3s of events at the Four Stories website.

Second, my friend Shannon Borg has a blog, 26 Kitchens, that this week got a mention in the New York Times Dining & Wine section. Shannon writes about her memories of the kitchens in her life, including the one we shared as roommates of yore.

So proud of my friends!